Defiant Until the End
by Anla'shok
Summary: 1978-1981: the years where everything ugly in the Wizarding Isles stopped lurking in the shadows and revealed itself for all to see. The years when terror paralyzed all but a cluster of indomitable British and Irish mages. Lily/James and the story of how they defied the Dark Lord three times. We know how it ends, but by Merlin's dashing cloak, it's a worthy tale.
1. The Fire

For those who might worry, I'm still writing "The Choices that Make Us." But James and Lily have also been pestering me for a turn these last days.

Reminder : James and Lily graduated from Hogwarts in the summer of 1978, they died at 21 years old in 1981.

* * *

**_Prologue_**

_"Why don't we just call Dumbledore whenever there's a situation involving Death Eaters?" _

_"Because they have a communication charm of their own : the Dark Mark. Call Dumbledore, and be ready to face You Know Who. You need to catch them unawares. Hope they get overconfident. Cuff their magic before they can ask for reinforcements."_

The problem was that Voldemort cared much less than Dumbledore did when his people died. It was how the Order lost their first people. Dumbledore came, and Voldemort went where he wasn't. Another problem was plain cold numbers. Unlike Voldemort, the Order couldn't use 'I reward loyalty and kill opposition,' as a recruitment speech.

* * *

**The first defiance, part 1 of 2, or how saving the Tonkses became a case of accidental investigative journalism (Spring 1979)**

"You realize you're not aurors, boys, right? Not even senior trainees. You're only called junior _aurors_ because the Ministry wants to show they're flexing their muscles. Don't let the inflated title get you killed."

_Thanks, Mr. Moody. Good morning to you too._

They were on a terrace cafe in central muggle London. Sirius had come roaring on his new motorcycle, a lock of hair across his face as he showed off his leather vest and trousers (Merlin, those trousers. But they seemed a thing from the way some of the muggle girls stared. James would have to ask Lils if she wanted him to hang around in leather trousers too.)

James preferred cut suits like those music guys, the Rolling Stones, with colorful button-ups that still let his chest breathe and white trousers that fell down properly without outlining ever curve of his butt (no judging, Sirius was single, and hey, those ladies looked happy to ogle).

Moody wore a sharp black suit and tie and from the "oh, sorry _Sir_!" he got when distracted muggles bumped his chair on the terrace, he looked like the kind of guy who'd cart you off to prison in both worlds.

The auror buttered his toast with deliberate movements that somehow managed to make the blunt knife look dangerous.

"What I'm saying, lads, is that restraint's going to have to come from you. There'll be more to do than anyone can possibly do. You're going to hold back sometimes, and it's going to kill you inside. And mark my words, they'll taunt you. They want you to charge, wands out, full of bravery and ideals. Then you'll die. You're no good to anyone dead." He sighed bitterly and took a big bite out of the toast. "You'll be just another immature Gryffindor who figured their desire to be a hero was stronger than their desire to truly make a difference." He stared straight at James, his piercing eyes blazing. "Stronger than their desire to do right by their wife."

James swallowed down his poached eggs. The taste was kind of ruined by Moody's speech. Breakfast with Alastor Moody was priviledge and an honor, one he'd been looking forward to since Moody himself had issued the invitation, but James hadn't expected it to start with something so damn grim.

Now Moody turned his piercing glare to Sirius. "I've got no use for hotblooded teenagers who want to _fight_. I need witches and wizards who want to _win_. To survive to have families of their own. Kids are eager for fights. Men, Women, they're _scared_. They should be."

Sirius, arms crossed and oversize sunglasses pinned to his white shirt nodded thoughtfully. "I won't hide it, Sir, I want them locked up or dead. But I want to live and laugh at them later too. I'm not suicidal."

They'd been officially members of the Order of the Phoenix for two whole weeks. James would be nineteen years old in a couple weeks more. Soon, they'd be on the field. Fear poisoned James' resolve as he realized Moody was telling them they wouldn't be given missions because they were ready, but because the situation was _that_ desperate.

With his shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair and his lined face that made you want to stand up straight and say 'Yes, Sir!', Alastor Moody was one of the few aurors outspoken about Voldemort. He'd boasted that he never slept twice in the same place these days. James has no idea where that man slept. Or _if_ he slept at all.

"Try the bacon, lads. It's good. Now let me tell you about one of my close calls, back when I was a dumb kid eager to fight."

James tried the bacon. It was good.

* * *

"Oi, Black." Moody eyed Sirius up and down as he chugged down his now cold tea. There was a twitch to his thin lips. He'd dropped the muddling spell that made eavesdroppers hear but ignore them. "I have to say you got the look down all right. You look like a right dick."

Sirius' eyebrows shot up. He slid overlarge sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on with a wide smile. "_Chickbait_. You said chickbait wrong, Sir."

A scoff and laughter was heard next to them. Two women in their early twenties, a blonde in a casual dress and a brown-skinned lady in a business suit, were laughing at them.

Sirius winked at them. "Forgive him, he's too old to keep up with style."

The girl in the suit lowered her coffee and stood up. She smiled at Moody. "Good morning, Sir." Embarrassment at Sirius' attitude darkened her cheeks in a cute way. Lily used to do that that too, get embarrassed on Padfoot's behalf.

Moody tipped his head. "I'll leave you youngsters. Don't let _chickbait_ sweet-talk you, unless you like the kind that leaves you with nothing but fond memories the next day."

"_Very_ fond memories," Sirius protested, wagging his eyebrows.

A popping sound killed James' grin. A panicked elf with a Ministry crest woven into its servant's cloth had apparated right in front of Moody.

"The Tonkses' house," it squeaked. "Death Eaters!"

Moody whipped out his wand in a circle. _Mass obliviate_. Everybody was staring. The muggles needed a new reason to stare, _now_, something vivid that'd replace the inconvenient memory of a house elf in the middle of a café.

The woman who'd greeted Moody collapsed, faint. Her forehead hit the side of the table. Her friend screamed as blood began pooling out of the cut. Nobody was staring at them anymore. All eyes were on the bleeding woman on the floor.

"Disillusion yourselves!"

James hastily obeyed, guilt pooling in his stomach. Since he'd started dating Lily, it was harder to think of muggles as people you just mind-wiped or hexed in the name of the Statute for Secrecy. They shouldn't have come here in the first place.

Moody's hand fastened around James' upper arm.

"She'll be fine," Moody gruffly said. "They got healers good enough for that."

The sharp tug of side-along apparition dragged him and Padfoot away from London and into a nightmare.

The muted blues of the clear Spring sky had been wiped away by swirling grays and, over the Tonkses' house, furious, twisting reds. The two-story sturdy brick house was still intact. James allowed himself to breathe.

The howling fire twisted and turned, shooting upwards and slamming down in a torrent of flames. Beneath it, the houses' protective wards cracked and withered. The magical flames parted to reveal blazing eyes and fangs. _Fiendfyre_.

A golden phoenix shot out of Moody's wand. It was met by two light-signals behind one of the windows. The Tonkses.

The garden, some seven hectares surrounded by a low brick wall, was for now bearing the brunt of the fire's assault. Bees buzzed in a panic as the abused Tonkses' wards folded backwards, almost brushing the hives. James' eyes were drawn to where the fire must have punched through the outer wards : a tunnel of black scorched earth had replaced a chunk of the brick wall and a solid half of the vegetable garden.

The rest was for now, thankfully spared. A small river shaded by alder trees ran just outside the garden, snaking through the lush Welsh hills. Conifers, oaks and apple trees, still mostly naked from the winter, stood tall among clusters of bushes. Nobody else, muggle or wizard lived within a couple of miles of the Tonkses'.

"Why are we staying so far back?" Sirius shouted over the fire's roar. "Shouldn't we go to the house?"

"I don't know that elf," Moody shot back. "Could be a trap!"

A storm of smoke rose around them, conjured by the grim-faced auror. It flowed into the garden and the surrounding grounds. Illusions of running and shouts, making it sound like ten witches and wizards had apparated, filled the air.

It was Moody's way of operating : confuse then strike. James tore his eyes away from the flames and crouched defensively, eyes swiping his surroundings.

"Where are the others?" he asked. Aurors, friends, _anyone_.

Moody barked a mirthless laugh. "_Busy_, you bet. Black's cousin is as good as a muggleborn now. Who's going to risk their hides for two mudbloods?" Moody's jaw was hard, his cheeks pale, as he stared at the dancing fiendfyre. "We've got to blast those wards."

_What -_

A silver revealing spell shot from Moody's wand. Like a paintbrush, it uncovered a new layer of wards : a dome around the Tonskes' house, its base just outside the brick wall.

Horror froze James' insides as the full measure of the situation set in.

_Those_ wards hadn't been woven by the Tonkses. Wards that trapped people inside. And _fiendfyre_. Merlin, they were so lucky those monsters' wards hadn't prevented a house elve's summons. The Tonkses' wards were holding, and they were some _solid_ wards considering the house was just some re-purposed 20th century muggle home, but for how long?

"Potter, perimeter! Black, with me!"

Moody's spell took shape, a shimmering battering ram of pure magic. Sirius, cursing freely, began pouring magic into it, sharpening the head into something more pointed arrow than ramhead.

The ram struck against the wards with a clap of thunder.

Streaks of magic like scars shot out from the impact point, lighting up the whole pulsing dome. It looked like a tangle of dark vines, thin and thick, entwining like a child's angry scribble. Nothing like the tightwoven symmetry of the Tonkses' wards behind it. Hopefully it was something Padfoot and Moody could break swiftly.

Sirius groaned as he wrestled with the sheer volume of magic he was pushing into the battering ram. "Why isn't the fiendfyre attacking _those_ wards?"

"It always eats at the most powerful magic first. If the house wards fall, we'll have seconds to get out of here."

James fought the urge to stare in all directions at once as he wove his own detection charms. Every wizard within a couple of miles would have heard the ram striking those dark wards. A part of him itched to fight, but after Moody's morning speech, he hoped the Death Eaters were long gone.

An explosion of sparks signaled the end of the bees. The houses' wards snapped back, wrapping themselves tightly around around the house.

_Merlin, little Nymphadora was in there._

He froze when one of his charms sung a warning, like a plucked guitar cord.

One masked man had apparated, or perhaps just come close enough to be detected. Two. He recognized neither. They looked young, perhaps as young as he was. They walked slowly, confused by the illusions.

James' grip was tight on his wand. The new echoes from his charms struck him like sharp rods.

Four masked people. _Five_. He couldn't take on five.

Should he call Kipper? So Lily could apparate as reinforcement? Or would that just get Lils killed? James took a slow breath. Then another, to shake away the growing panic. For now, nothing was stopping the three of them from leaving if things got too bad. He had to stop fretting and start focusing on doing what Moody has tasked him to do. He'd trained for this.

Time. Padfoot and Moody needed time to break through the wards. James just had to get them that time. Then there would be five of them with Ted and Andromeda. Solid odds.

Crouched in the magical smoke, he transfigured dead branches, stones and pine-cones into wasps, stinging beetles and poisoned toads. The trick was to get the venom right. Prof. McG, _Minerva_, had almost looked almost mournful when he'd managed it, saying he was wasted as an auror. James figured he had all the time to do a transfigurations mastery if he survived this first. The kick he got at seeing his former Head of House light up in pride felt a bit dimmed as he crouched in the concealing smoke, deafened by the fiendfyre's howl. It didn't feel all that _much_, with five death eaters prowling around him.

The masked wizards cast useless banishment charms on the smoke and shoot stunners in the direction of Moody's sound illusions. James smiled tightly in relief. Not experienced wizards. Probably nobody from Hogwarts even.

He ordered the buzzing, crawling, hopping creatures around him to go attack. _Get yourselves swallowed, go up their noses,_ he magically whispered to the wasps.

Voldemort had seduced them, the wizard-born who spent their days crafting portkeys or transporting food, those who minded post-owls or owned tiny struggling shops. Those whose children weren't welcome at Hogwarts because nobody in their line had ever married into the right sort of blood or wealth. Who didn't even bother apply for a Ministry job, aware it wasn't for _their kind_. He told them _you're special_, _I'll help you show it to those who looked down upon you._ Of course, he convinced only the stupid, the angry, the bullies thrilled for an excuse to blow things up.

But it was enough to outnumber the Order five to one. And with threats laced in his promises, those numbers had quadrupled. Who needed to be coherent when Fenrir Greyback would show up on the front door of those who displeased him?

Soon, James heard screams. Wasp-sting screams were ugly. It wasn't the kind of fighting he'd dreamed of when he'd started training, but Moody was right. This wasn't about glory. Distracted by the wasps, the Death Eaters didn't see the toads until they were rubbing their poisonous skins on their calves. Two of the men fell, their leg muscles paralyzed. The other three had broken into a panicked run.

James powered Moody's illusions with cries of '_there_!' and jets of light that looked identical to stunners without the right detection charms.

_BOOM! _James smiled despite his wince. _Come on, Padfoot. Break through that cursed ward!_

Unfortunately, the Death Eaters weren't _that_ incompetent. A ball of fire, followed by more soon crisped his poor insects into nothingness. James whispered furiously, this time conjuring wasps, a fireproof kind. Conjured creatures could easily be banished, but since the transfigured ones had been resistant to banishment, he hoped the Death Eaters would try fire first and then panic when it didn't work.

More screams tore through the morning air. James tried to ignore the churning in his stomach. _Fiendfyre_. These were the kind of people who cast fiendfyre on a family. They deserved no sympathy.

_BOOM!_

James itched to bolt, to shout, to cast more spells. But he wasn't Padfoot. His hexes, curses and shields were solid NEWTs stuff but nothing special unlike his transfiguration work. So he waited, making sure he always knew where the five were. He could barely see them, but they had yet to undo his detection charms. _Thank you, Moody, for riding my ass until I could cast discreet locators. _One of the men (he always pictured _men_ when he wasn't sure, it made things easier somehow) had run off to the limits of his range, and one was hovering around the three who were still twisting in pain from the stings and venom. Anti-venom charms were tough, and James let himself hope the Death Eaters hadn't stocked up on potions.

He blinked. The smoke was dissipating. Someone had summoned wind. Strong wind across the whole field. NEWTs level magic.

James' charms shivered. And begun unraveling. New panic began sinking its claws in James' chest.

He took a slow breath. So _six_ death eaters.

He raised the mirror hanging around his neck to his mouth. "Three down, two moving. I've got a sixth who knows what he's doing."

"Hang tight." Sirius whispered back. "Moody's going to strengthen the illusions."

_BOOM! _The dark wards were cracking. They were visible now, even when Moody's and Padfoot's battering ram wasn't striking them. The magical vines making up the wards writhed like snakes, struggling under the assault.

Balls of fire filled the air along with fat, mean crows, shooting for the Death Eaters. _Thanks, Moody._

"They're illusions, you morons!" An adult male's voice. A imperious ring to it that could be just arrogance, but probably meant _pureblood_. The Hogwarts, my-family-has-seats-in-the-Wizengamot kind. "Get to the wards! Stop them!"

James squared his jaw and transfigured two nearby rocks into fat, mean crows identical to Moody's illusions. He smiled in satisfaction when one crashed with all its weight on the back of the head of one of the Death Eaters. The idiot hadn't even ducked, convinced he was dealing with another illusion.

The leader, unfortunately, blasted the crow before it had come within a yard of him. James knew he needed to get the Death Eater's wands, but once he betrayed his position, there was no going back. There were still two standing, and the leader wasn't someone James felt confident dueling.

A ripping sound had him whip his head towards the wards. It had come from _inside_-

"Meda finished our job. They're through, they look fine." Padfoot's voice in the mirror was like warm honey. "Get back here."

James grinned. It was so much better when the people you wanted to rescue were helpful at rescuing themselves.

His smile died as the wind changed, no, not wind, magic was _sucked_ from the house and towards _them_.

The dark wards were gone. Vanished like they had never existed. The fiendfyre split in half, and half shot above them, an arch of cursed fire. Flames filled the air in every direction, cutting away their escape. Twenty yards from them, the fields began to burn. James blinked bitter smoke out of his stinging eyes.

"Don't apparate in fiendfyre!" Moody boomed. Brooms!"

They all carried magically miniaturized brooms. The added enchantments murdered the broom's performances, but it was better than nothing. Faster than running.

Sirius, Meda, Ted and Moody whipped up a shield to give them time to mount. A spinning hex James didn't recognize crashed harmlessly against it. The leader stiffened some ten yards away from them. Hesitating.

James' left hand was slippery on the broom handle as zoomed back towards the others. There were gaps in the flames wide enough to fly through, but if the fiendfyre was left unchecked... The few miles until the closest muggle houses didn't feel like so far anymore.

"Morning," James greeted with a grin. He'd always laughed like an idiot when nervous.

Ted weakly smiled back and cast a strapping spell to fasten Nymphadora to Moody's back. The five year old was so silent James was startled to notice her wide open eyes. Ted hastily kissed his daughter and climbed behind Sirius.

"Thank you," Andromeda whispered as she climbed behind James.

Her arms were warm around his chest. His throat constricted. "You managed to salvage some things?"

"All that matters. It's not a manor." Merlin, that woman sounded _calm_. Andromeda was like his mum, all frosty pureblood poise that revealed nothing when she didn't want it too. "I've got you shielded," she whispered.

James swallowed and put his second hand on the broom handle. This was the most dangerous part. They'd be visible, vulnerable and half-blinded by fire and heat. If he lost control of the broom, there wouldn't even be ashes left.

Their protective shield buckled and screeched when a sizzling reddish-curse struck it.

"On three," Moody said tightly. "Potter, open the way."

A new burst of smoke surrounded them, covering them. James kicked off, hastily testing the balance with Andromeda weighting him down. His eyes narrowed at the flames. He had this. Easy flying. He had to trust Meda to do the shielding and find the best path for the others.

An unnatural sound, between a hiss and a sigh and a wail pierced through the howl of the fiendfyre.

Meda's arms tightened violently around him. James blanched. The Tonkses' wards had failed. The house was recent, no magic-infused manor, meaning that the most magical thing left around was _them_.

The protective tunnel Moody had cast between two blazing walls was swallowed in flames as the fiendish snake around them tripled in volume. James sharply changed direction to find another escape.

A spiderweb of purplish-green magic, no spell of theirs, cut them off. Twin spells flew at it, Sirius, Meda and Ted, but unless you knew the curse, it'd be luck to undo it with a single shot.

And it didn't matter, the spiderweb pulsed with magic. The fire swallowed it whole.

Like a hydra, heads sprouted out of the flames. The biggest shot directly at Ted and Sirius.

Meda hissed and raised her arms. The closest outgrowth of fiendfyre... _dissolved_?

James winced as her magic chafed against his. Dark Arts. Not that he'd voice a word of complaint. But how long could the eldest Black sister keep _this_ up?

He rose upwards. He needed to see. _There!_ The leader was some a hundred yards from them, with the other Death Eater, a sturdy, short person that might actually be a woman. The four death eaters they'd incapacitated looked liked they'd been transfigurated into puppies and stuck into a bag.

James figured those people intended to get out of here alive. Indeed, behind the leader, was a large gap between flames.

"Cover me!" He shouted, turning his broom a hundred and twenty degrees and shooting for their enemies.

Fierce satisfaction welled inside him as the sight of the Death Eaters starting in shock. The broom reached maximum speed. Adrenaline burned his veins as hot air whipped against his face.

The woman next to the leader seemed to break into panic. She waved her wand. _Merlin, no! Run away! _The leader shoved her, but he wasn't fast enough. Magic shot out to form some kind of spiky shielding hex.

The fiendfyre noticed. A hydra with a dozen hissing heads dived towards them all.

Meda screamed as she dissolved more of the heads, somehow swallowing up the magic. It was dead impressive. It wasn't _enough_. Moody, snarling, joined her. Still, there was too much fire, and it kept feeding itself. Perhaps, if they'd had two Moodys and two Medas, but -

Suddenly, it was like the anti-magic syphon struggling to stifle the fiendfyre had doubled in strength. The tear-inducing heat dimmed. The light faded, leaving James to blink furiously to adapt to natural daylight.

The fiendfyre around them was embers. The leader wasn't alone anymore. A woman, a halo of black curls surrounding her face stood right next to him. Unmasked.

James recognized her with a jolt.

Bellatrix Black-Lestrange pointed her wand straight at him and Andromeda.

* * *

**Author's note :**

This should be roughly six chapters long, with each defiance taking up two chapters. There's an even chance it will be longer as my stories tend to grow fat when they take a life of their own (_Edit : called it! Six chapters is going to cover just the first two^^_).

* * *

**A digression about population numbers **(TLDR : Hogwarts isn't the only wizarding school in the British Isles because numbers and stuff don't add up otherwise.)

There are forty students or so in Harry's year (that's the number from JKR's notes, there's even fewer named characters in canon). In book 2, it says there's 200 Slytherin in the Quidditch stands, but that would mean between 20 and 30 Slytherin in each year, which makes no sense. You could argue Harry's year is the smallest because it's the kids born during the war, but there's are too few teachers to support the idea that there is more than one class per year (unless the teachers are using time-turners, but that's one deep plot-hole in waiting).

So let's say 40 kids per year, and 280 kids in total in the seven years (40x7). Assuming wizards live on average 100 years (sure Dumbledore's ancient, but many have died because there's a war every generation), you have roughly 100x40 so 4000 wizards in the Isles. That's too small considering the size of the Ministry, of Saint Mungos, the fact that Azkaban needs 200 prisoners in there at all times (unless perhaps you have foreign prisoners brought in... I digress) and other facts in canon.

Add to that the fact that Ron is one of the poorest kids attending Hogwarts. This guy has a father with a solid (although not high status) job, and two older brothers with solid, pretty impressive jobs. If that's the poorest you get in wizarding England, I'm a flobberworm.

We see in canon shops with assistants and shifty people in the Hog's Head, we have Stan Shunpike driving the Knight's bus. What about _their_ kids?

So I roughly tripled the population and decided the other kids go to another day/boarding school (schools?) are home-schooled, or whatever other set up you can imagine. Hogwarts is for the top 30%.

**Okay, enough about the world-building. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter^^. **


	2. A Truthful Prophet

**The first defiance, part 2 of 2**

* * *

_The fiendfyre around them was embers. The leader wasn't alone anymore. A woman, a halo of black curls surrounding her face stood right next to him. Unmasked._

_James recognized her with a jolt._

_Bellatrix Black-Lestrange pointed her wand straight at him and Andromeda._

Andromeda shifted her weight on the broomstick. James lost his balance and tumbled downwards. Years of Quidditch had him silently cast a cushioning charm by reflex. They crashed against the ground as the massive spell blasted into them. Into Andromeda. Somehow, James had ended up behind her in a fetal position.

James tasted blood. His sides were slick. More blood. _Merlin's pants_. He barely dared breathe and was rewarded by a sharp stabbing pain in his sides. He mumbled a diagnosis charm. He grinned in silly relief. No curse wounds. It hurt like nobody's business, something was probably broken, but it was fixable and that's all that mattered. Suddenly, the pain dropped to tolerable levels. Meda's wand was pointed against his ribs.

Andromeda helped him upright, her expression fierce. James clung to her like she was his aunt instead of Sirius' older cousin, stupidly relieved when he managed to stand on his own. She had taken most of the blow, she should be barely breathing. Instead she looked like she'd taken a hard shove.

"You're amazing," he muttered sincerely. Whatever shield she had silently cast, it had nothing to envy to Bellatrix's magic.

The Death Eater James now thought of as _the leader_ was on the ground at Bellatrix's feet, his mask torn off. _Wait, Bellatrix had hexed him?_ Two of the other death eaters were sprawled on the ground, the transfiguration undone by the blow and – James winced at the angle some of their limbs formed- possibly very dead.

Moody, Nymphadora still strapped to his back, was off his broom, one knee against the ground. A thick shield spell shimmered before him, wide enough to protect Padfoot and Ted. The two were standing, moving. James vowed to do whatever Moody wanted, forever, no questions asked.

"Merlin!" Padfoot gasped, relief constricting his voice as he rushed towards James and Andromeda. "I thought I'd lost you two there."

Edward Tonks took his wife in his arm. Meda's eyes weren't leaving Bellatrix.

"Did she just save our lives, or did she forget?" Ted whispered. "Is that one someone you know?"

_Wait. Forget what?_

"Yes. That's Evan Rosier. Mother's cousin," Andromeda's voice was flat, her lips thinned into a bitter half-smile. "Probably figured he was doing Mother a favor."

James turned back to Padfoot, and found him gone.

Sirius was half-way between them and Bellatrix. He was carrying something. The leader's, _Rosier's_, satchel with the three remaining wounded death-eaters-turned-puppies.

Bellatrix glowered at Padfoot. She now had Evan Rosier by the scruff of his neck, half-fainted at her feet. Yup, she _had_ hexed the bloke. The other Death Eater woman looked very eager to be forgotten, a solid handful of yards behind Bellatrix.

James groaned as he willed himself _next_ to Sirius. Despite Meda's healing spell, the rush of air from the displacement charm felt like a kick in the ribs.

The two Gryffindors froze when a new man apparated right next to Bellatrix. He would have been very handsome had his eyes not been rimmed with unnatural red. Looking closer, something was off about his face, it was a little too smooth, a little too _perfect_, in a way that suggested a glamour. James' magic squirmed at the aura of darkness. It pulsed violently, erratically, like a beast eager to break out of its cage. He could count on one hand the wizards and witches so powerful their magic announced itself. Even Dumbledore's power was more discreet. Then again, Dark Arts shouted their presence in a way light magic never did.

"It's bad to steal," Voldemort tutted. "Give it back." The satchel in Sirius' hands became a spinning plate that flew to Voldemort, stopping at his feet. On top of the plate the three puppies were yapping in alarm.

Sirius raised his wand. Bellatrix smiled as she raised hers, as if it was all a game. They had to apparate away from here, but all magic had been sucked out of the air by the fiendfyre and unless you were Bellatrix or the Dark Lord (and perhaps Meda or Moody, but not with Nymphadora forced to side-along), the imbalance meant splinching for sure. They needed to buy a couple more minutes.

"You want a country for the powerful, the ambitious, and yet you kill _us_." James shouted, because, fuck, he couldn't _outduel_ the guy. "We're the front line because we're strong and we want _better_ for ourselves. Whatever you claim, you leave the weak alive to bow to you. You just care about complete loyalty."

Voldemort blinked. He smiled, his eyes never crinkling. "You're right, young Potter." His voice was smooth yet angry, as if the anger was a natural state of being."It's unacceptable. I shouldn't tolerate the little mice at the Ministry cowering behind their excuses. They're so eager to _minimize_ me, to save face." He turned to Bellatrix. "Come, Bella." His eyes finally crinkled as he looked upon the destruction. "Bella, next time, threaten my Death Eaters against interfering with your former sister _before_ things go so far. I don't have an infinite number to spare."

"Rosier's still alive, my Lord," Bella replied with a bright innocent smile as she kicked the man gasping at her feet. "And _this_ will save me a lot of threatening."

Voldemort smiled pitilessly and offered his arm to Rosier. He helped the shaking Death Eater up as Rosier blubbered thanks and apologies.

"Next time, Evan, _think_." Voldemort sounded _very_ amused.

James' heart raced furiously. He had no idea, how sane that man actually was. Behind them, Moody was ashen, his limbs shaking and yet his wand lowered. His free hand was on Nymphadora's lower back and James could feel how _conflicted_ the auror was. But he couldn't -he _mustn't_ – rush into a confrontation while carrying a child.

Voldemort turned to them. "Potter, Black, don't be fools. You're right: you're powerful, you're clever. You're will die if you oppose me. The Ministry is falling. Let it. It's rotten. Build a new Britain with me. Don't die for them. They don't even fight for themselves. They'd let _you_ die without a second thought."

"That's cousin Meda under attack," Sirius snapped, staring pointedly at Bellatrix. "Not some random ministry worker."

Bellatrix's eyes blazed. "No fire left, no? _You're welcome_. And cousin, next time, I'm blowing _you_ up. I thought you wanted freedom, and now you're Dumbledore's toy soldier?"

James nudged Padfoot, hard, before he could make a crack about the Dark Mark or something. This wasn't a Black family dinner. Voldemort was _right there._

Something happened. Something all around them born of Voldemort's magic. The air felt suddenly more _right_. It was like the fiendfyre had never happened. Of course, the twin rings of scorched earth, one over what once had been the Tonkses' large garden, and one two hundred yards beyond that, where the fire had tried to cut off their escape, would be visible for years.

Within a couple of seconds, Voldemort and his Death Eaters had disapparated.

"Gringotts," Moody barked.

The auror cast a glamour on James, who was a mess of dirt-covered half-torn robes. The others swiftly smarted themselves up.

Without a word, they all apparated in front of the goblin-run bank. Meeting rooms in Gringotts cost ten galleons an hour, which was pure extortion, but they were protected by the bank's incredible wards and the goblins were staying neutral. James would have preferred Hogwarts but he wasn't sure he could fly the distance between the edge of the wards and the castle in the state he was in.

Moody let out a hissing breath as soon as they were alone in one of the circular rooms furnished with armchairs and small tables with alcohol trays.

"What were you _thinking, _lads? You're bloody lucky he was in a good mood and figured he might try to recruit you instead of -"

"How about a shot of firewhisky or something to celebrate being alive before you tell us everything we screwed up, Sir?"

Moody's eyes narrowed sharply at Sirius. He grunted. "It's all new to you, huh, this war? Don't fool yourself, Voldemort's been circling around us for _years_. You were still sitting you OWLs when he began buttering up the Giants. This is just the beginning. Don't get drunk on your dumb luck."

"You did great, Mr. Moody. You trained James and Potter well. Stop beating yourself up."

_Beating -_ But Edward Tonks' words made Moody shut his mouth and deflate slightly. _Merlin balls, Moody was riding them because he felt _guilty_?_ _About _what_? _The auror crossed his arms and grunted again. "It's not over," he muttered grumpily. "It's going to get worse."

As they sat, still reeling from the mornings' events, Moody stared hard at Andromeda. "Lady, I've got questions about your relationship with Lestrange. Which elf did you call? I believe you got none of your own, and Ministry elves don't answer summons."

"Bean. The elf who minded Bellatrix, Narcissa and I as girls. She must've warned my little sister." The way she said_ little sister,_ like she was daring them to object, like there were a thousand stories behind those two words. James felt almost ashamed, but Moody didn't even twitch."She was right to." Andromeda continued, before sucking in a breath. "Thank you, Bean," she said distinctively. "One can forbid a house-elf to obey, but not to listen." She softened and smiled at Moody as she went to pick up her daughter, still wrapped to the auror's back. "Thank _you, _Sir_._"

"Mummy, I think my leg burned at little. I can't change it."

James winced at the subdued fearful tone. He'd met Dora before and _subdued_ really wasn't the word. The girl's hair which were blonde pigtails one day and a rooster's crest the next, had taken a form James had never seen. Nymphadora, who already at five seemed to cultivate a fierce individuality, now looked like a miniature of her mother, all dark curls down to her hips, cloaking her like protective mantle.

"Don't worry, we'll vanish the dead skin and have a healer grow it back. Then it'll change again."

"Okay." Nymphadora latched onto her mother, burying herself silently in her chest.

The adrenaline was wearing off. James' strength ebbed away. A part of him wanted to cry at the sight of this family. At what had almost happened. His eyes stayed painfully dry and he was just glad to stay alive.

_Hey, we owned this_, _be proud! _the part of him not yet harmed by the war challenged. James mustered a smile for Nymphadora. The kid's lips twitched but her hands tightened around her mother's cloak.

"We both saw that exchange between Lestrange and the Dark Lord." _Merlin, Moody really never stopped being a auror._ "She's less scared of him than the rest. He's fond of her. If we could have information-"

Meda flicked her wand. Nymphadora closed her eyes. Asleep.

Meda's eyes were flint as she turned to face Moody. "Where were you when my family disowned me? Where were you during the _months_ when Ted and I were harassed by aurors determined to prove we were doing something worthy of arrest? When threatening owls were sent to our first clients when we'd finally managed to set up our practice, as nobody would hire _us_?"

Moody blinked. For the first time, James saw the man open his mouth and just close it again.

"Then don't ask me to be _bait_. My daughter needs me. You felt my sister's dark as I did : she's tethering on the limit. Her sanity is doubtless already fraying. She could decide tomorrow that she wants me dead. I will keep making protections and escape-portkeys for the Order, but that is all. I don't want anybody to die, but I won't forget that nobody came to me when I needed help. Only when they figured I could be _useful_."

"Keeping grudges will get innocents killed," Moody growled.

"Hey, you're doing plenty," Sirius intervened.

Moody frowned at the hug Padfoot gave Meda, as if it was a breach of loyalty, but James couldn't find it in him to blame his best friend. He'd never quite realized it, before he'd started seeing Lily steadily, how unfair and callous their world was. Andromeda had been disowned and nobody had taken her side (except Sirius, but a twelve-year-old's encouraging letters could only do so much), even those who hid none of their dislike for the Blacks hadn't turned their glee at the Blacks' public embarrassment into actual support for the Tonkses.

Sirius' concerned voice broke him out of his musings. "Prongs, you need to get to Saint Mungos. _Now_."

Sirius' arm was around James' shoulders. James sucked in a breath, swaying under the weight. _Huh_. He was shaking. It was like the strength had been vanished out of him. His ribs had awakened once more, like stab wounds. It was actually so painful his brain didn't seem to know what to do with the pain. His magic tingled, in a weird, kind of alarming way.

"Potter. _Potter_! Right, I'm carrying you."

James really wanted to say _no_, because_ come on. _The spoiled kid in him thought it awesome that _Moody_ would carry him like he was the brave self-sacrificing side-kick. The young man in him winced in embarrassment.

All his protests came out a wordless grunt of exhausted pain.

* * *

He woke up in Saint Mungo's to the most familiar and most beautiful halo of red hair in the world.

"Hey, Lils. What time is it?"

"Hey, my handsome hero. 10 PM, you've slept eleven hours."

She squeezed his hand. Her hand was warm and soft and better than any potion. Her calm demeanor comforted him that everything would heal properly. He was so grateful, that she didn't ask him to stay home. He knew she shared most of her worries with Remus, and he was glad that she spared him the guilt of seeing her hurt. Of course, it had been Lily who'd gone to Dumbledore and convinced him to let her and them into the Order. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve such a brave wife, but he tried to be worthy of it.

"Sirius told me what happened. Would you give a memory, of the encounter with Voldemort?"

There was a trace, and so they didn't dare say the name Voldemort in unwarded areas. In Saint Mungo's the risk was minimal, and it felt nice, to not cower all the time.

He didn't want to think about this morning just yet. He didn't want _Lily_ to go through that. But she was his wife, not his kid. "Sure, is it just curiosity, or are you plotting something?"

Lily smiled. _Ah_, so the calm wasn't just her being an amazing supportive wife. Lily had a plan. She hadn't joined them in auror training, but James knew she kept busy. The hours she spent every morning poring over local and national muggle newspapers to uncover Death Eater activity had saved dozens of lives and fixed (as much as these things could be fixed) all too many acts of barbarity against muggles.

Her lips were warm against his. "I'll let you rest." He inhaled, her smell making him fall in love all over again.

The selfish part of him wanted to whine for her to stay. He wasn't _that_ exhausted. Instead he manned up and winked. "Make me proud."

* * *

The Daily Prophet's printing process was automatized, or whatever the equivalent word in the magical world was. What looked like a muggle printing press straight from the sixteenth century handled the first phase of the printing. Hundreds of metal ink-stained blocks, each carved with a single character, arranged themselves to copy the text of the master copy, written by dicta-quill. Other blocks did the pictures, ink-stained parts reshaping themselves to produce the needed images. Every printed paper then slid into a enchanted box where multiplying charms made hundreds of copies. Objects born of magical multiplication rarely had a long lifespan, but for all the legitimate complaints one could have about the Ministry, the magical infrastructure was something to behold. After a couple of centuries of spell-crafting, the Prophet's copies could last decades and could weather worse abuse than natural paper (the anti-coffee stains enchantments were some of the best in Europe).

What mattered to Lily was that between 11PM and 5AM, the Daily Prophet's printing area was deserted. The staff deposited the final copy of next morning's paper in the appropriate box near the printing press and went home, confident magic would do the rest. With an inside contact, it wasn't hard to get in.

Wand raised just in case as she walked to one of the side door's of the Prophet's Headquarters, Lily smiled in relief when a tall, round-faced witch revealed herself in the near total darkness.

Alice Grayson (a pureblood, but not one of _those_ purebloods, the ones with money and political power), now Longbottom, had become a journalist after Hogwarts, her girlhood dream job. She'd been under the illusion she'd get to tell the truth, then. Nowadays, she fed information to the Order. In parallel she was finishing her accelerated auror training, determined to join her husband Frank in the field and go where she'd make the biggest difference.

Alice had been one of the friendlier sixth year Gryffindors back when Lily had been a wide-eyed firstie, and and invaluable help when it had come to navigating the wizarding world. Lily was proud to count her among her close friends.

"Everything's ready," Alice said. "How's James?"

"Physically fine. I'm glad nobody got hurt." Seeing it in the memory, knowing nobody on their side would actually die, had been terrifying enough. _Fiendfyre_. Saved because Meda was a dark witch, and Alastor Moody too, for all that he avoided the subject. Saved because of power plays between Death Eaters and some remnants of sisterly loyalty. _Damn it. _How could it have gotten to the point that they had needed _Bellatrix_ to avoid a disaster?

Lily would need more time to get to the bottom of it, but with Arthur Weasley's help, they'd traced back Moody's call for back up.

_"We set up a team, Mr. Weasley," _they'd said. _"Then we received auror Moody's signal that the situation had been resolved."_

In other words : _We messed around for twenty minutes, then everything was over._

Molly, Fabian and Gideon had been busy investigating what looked like a series of thefts (or maybe an organized black market operation) in the Department of Mysteries, and all outside signals were warded against in that particular Department for security reasons. Likewise, the Hogwarts wards blocked regular communication spells so Minerva had been unreachable. The Order really had to find a way to communicate that worked _better_. Patroni had been suggested recently, but good luck getting everyone able to cast those swiftly in a crisis. They were also the opposite of _discreet_.

"You should have a talk with the Longbottom elves," Lily whispered as she and Alice hurried to the printing press. "They might be our best lines of communication."

_God_ (or Merlin, but there was a slight chance of a merciful God listening, so_ God!_) Lily had wanted to scream when she'd heard Sirius tell it. House-elves could pop through wards like they didn't exist and listen better than _any_ spell? How had Dumbledore not spent the last months doing whatever he could to see how much the Hogwarts house-elves would consent to help communications-wise? Lily had asked Nincy and Kipper first thing if they could pop to the Prewett twins, Frank Longbottom, Minerva, and the Weasleys, if she said the elves' names and 'emergency', and they had answered _yes_.

Blasted wizards and their dismissal of anything not pureblood.

"I will." Alice promised. "There it is."

The first page of tomorrow's issue was about the upcoming World Cup, the second about a concert and a new fashion shop opening in Diagon Alley, full with tips about style and an admittedly decently critical discussion about fashion and perceived status. Page 3 had the usual spells of the day, all reasonably useful and yet desperately underwhelming, considering.

You had to get to Page 5 to start getting a hint that all was not as it should be.

_An exceptional Wizengamot session will be held to decide if we should increase the number of Obliviator positions, or possibly contract Italian obliviators-for-hire._

Because of course, crimes against muggles were solved by wiping the victims' minds. No matter that research that had shown that wiping traumatic memories actually didn't wipe the reaction to those, leaving people _not knowing_ why they acted traumatized or had chilling nightmares. But, muggles, right? Who cared about them or the actual _criminals_?

Page 6 held a few sentences about a family recently (fifty years ago) emigrated from Germany who had buried their eldest daughter in a _tragic accident _and sent condolences. A lot of accidents were happening these days. A lot of '_accidents_'.

Today's 'accident' at the Tonkses was hinted to be the consequence of a failed spell-crafting experiment. After all, everybody knew the disowned Black daughter of Cygnus and Druella crafted spells. Suggesting that she and Ted crafted dark illegal spells and had asked for the 'accident', endangering the life of the brave Alastor Moody and his trainees, was _such_ a nice touch.

But at least it showed there was an actual intent to discredit and hide Death Eater's activity. It wasn't just poor unwilling journalists being forced into silence to keep their jobs (then again, in a world with magic where you had a roof, food and could disapparate at will whatever happened, not even mentioning how easy it was to get muggle money as a wizard, how much loss of integrity was a job _worth_?). All this disinformation was actual _malicious lies_. So Lily felt no guilt at all about despising them. She hoped they'd quickly narrow down who precisely was instigating these lies and doing the threatening.

_Page 7._ General warning about werewolves. With all the usual pitiless prejudiced drivel. Vague sentences about increasingly common sightings. Never close to the high-status neighborhoods and estates, so why bother with more than vague alarming, _useless_, information? It was the same as that article on giants two weeks before.

Lily sighed, willing her boiling anger under control. It was time to end this polite charade. Now people, and especially Wizarding Britain's polite society, wouldn't be able to say that they had _no idea_.

She tore off the first pages, making page 5 the first of the new issue. She had so much to say, but she had to pick her battles. She just circled the article on the need for more obliviators _'are you sure it's under control? Certain the victims are all muggles? Who's threatening the statute of secrecy so badly with their murders, rapes, torture and thefts (chill out, just muggle mums and dads and muggle kids, for now)?'_

The following two pages became ten as she fattened them with references to all the 'accidents' in the previous months' issues, with clippings from the register of witches and wizards that showed a spike in deaths among 'little' people. '_How many accidents until it's not accidental anymore?_' she wrote.

Under the Tonkses' paragraph, she just wrote '_actually_...' and magicked James' memory to the paper. Of course, she could only include a poor black-and-white copy of the event, a sort of photograph reel of a few chosen moments, and the sound was transcribed magically as text. But it was more than enough to make their point. Evan Rosier was clearly identified, but she had cropped the picture to cut out Bellatrix. Sirius had seemed to say Bellatrix had _helped_, for all the madwoman had blasted Andromeda and James. If there was _any_ chance Bellatrix would distance herself from Voldemort, or, let's dream a little, persuade the Dark Lord to calm the hell down, they had to take it. Bellatrix Lestrange's allegiances were one of the worst kept secrets in the Isles anyway.

Lily included the memory of Voldemort saying that the Ministry were sheep _minimizing_ him, because that was the crux of it. She hoped, _desperately hoped,_ that she'd generate some empathy and outrage for the victims of crimes and injustice, but she also knew that the Ministry would only move when it realized _not doing_ was more dangerous than acting.

She then signed. The memories were a signature anyway, and her Gryffindor heart crowed at the pleasure of writing down her name with a flourish.

_James Potter (auror trainee) and Lily Evans-Potter (eight NEWTs and no job because muggleborn)._

That morning five thousand copies of the Daily Prophet were delivered to houses all over the Isles (and some overseas). It hit the Wizarding World like a blasting curse.

"Merlin's beard, Lils, you don't do things by halves."

Lily narrowed her eyes at her husband. "Which one of us _shouted_ at Voldemort?"

"Hey, that was a compliment."

Her satisfaction was diluted by dread when Dumbledore summoned her to hastily set up protective wards around her parents' house, _just in case_.

"You did a brave thing, Lily." The old wizard wasn't hiding his worry. Or the fact that he was thinking about a thousand things about the same time. But he did smile at her. "I rather admire for it. Only, please, warn us should you intend to take such drastic action again."

Lily nodded respectfully, something warm filling her chest at having _Albus Dumbledore's_ approval. She _had_ been impulsive. But despite the Order's great speeches, she and Oliver O'Neill were the only two muggleborn members, and almost everybody had attended Hogwarts (and most of _those_ had sorted Gryffindor). She loved them all on principle, but she wasn't blind to their faults. This edition of the Prophet was the kick to the nuts everybody had needed.

* * *

Four days later, all the morning's papers burst into flames that twisted into a grim snake. A Dark Mark.

Lily yelped in surprised, dropping the charred remains of her own copy. Suddenly, she just _knew_. "Kipper, get Moody! Tell him the Daily Prophet's building and the journalists are going to get targeted."

She'd learn a few hours later that aurors had found all the Daily Prophet's staff gathered in the same room, in a panic, shouting about the "Dark Mark" that had consumed the newspapers. Perfectly gathered for an ambush. Luckily, with such an unsubtle stress, she wasn't the only one who had feared the worst.

The good guys won. James spared her the grisly details. Neither he and Sirius had been there, thank God. Actual experienced aurors had responded to a threat that close to the heart of the Ministry. A force twenty strong, strengthened by the Ministry's official dueling club (gathered by chance in a nearby room to award Louis Bones a golden cup for best dueler under thirty in the conjurations and summoning category.)

Three aurors died, and twelve Death Eaters. Not a single name of note among those criminals, proof Voldemort was hiding his key people, that this attack was a warning, that the attacking Death Eaters had been his _weaker_ forces. A pushback to threaten the Ministry against opposing him. '_Next time, I won't spare you',_ might as well have been tagged on the walls in blood.

Hopefully, the way he wasted his lower-class Death Eaters' lives would prove that he was as full of shit as the worst of the elitist purebloods. The Order would have to step up and make sure Voldemort couldn't blackmail people, but surely recruitment among those who hadn't attended Hogwarts would fall sharply.

* * *

Alastor Moody had been targeted in a way that made clear the Death Eaters had had instructions. Luckily, the man was an army all by himself. Only one of those awful dark curses had struck true.

Lily stared down at the middle-aged auror lying in the hospital bed. Asleep, he looked like a young grandfather. "In the Muggle world, a guy like that, you'd expect him to be riddled in scars. Here you heal everything too well..."

"Now he'll have a big one." James said somberly. He forced a brave smile on his face. "He'll go around stomping on our feet with his fake leg in no time."

Moody suddenly shifted. "Stop talking 'bout me like I can't hear you, kids."

Lily and James grinned as one.

"Old man, they're going to regret not having killed you," James promised solemnly.

"Damn right. Voldemort's mad at you two specifically, kids. Your names got mentioned. Next time, don't count on him sweet-talking you."

"What," James said, with that wide joking grin Lily hoped he never lost, "he _finally_ figured we wouldn't join him?"

And so this was the first time the Potters defied Lord Voldemort.

* * *

**Author's notes :**

_To know how exactly Andromeda survived Bellatrix's blasting hex, you can read the first chapter of "The Choices that Make us", my in-progress story about the Blacks._

**Well, I hope that made for a satisfying first defiance!**


	3. Improvised Diplomacy

**Second defiance, t****he one with the werewolves.**** Part 1 of 3 (or perhaps even 4, I'm terrible at this). **

There will be a couple of foreign characters. They make some English mistakes. It's not typos. It shouldn't make them hard to understand.

* * *

**November 1979**

Tonight Lily was in a mood for dragons. "Fingo ignis," she whispered in the living room, her wand pointed at the eternal candles that floated along every wall. The fire changed shape as she tried various dragon breeds. Visualizing the dragons was a little like drawing, and her first attempts were sad beasts with wrong proportions. But within minutes, her flames crafting began giving respectable results.

_Fingo ignis_, she thought, wordlessly charming the flames above the dinner table into lithe dancing dragons.

A huge blur of black fur suddenly went for her dragons, jaws wide open.

Lily gasped in surprise and then slapped Padfoot's thigh with a huff. "Let me set things up, you child!" Her friend-turned-dog didn't listen to her, obviously.

"Padfoot!" James bellowed. "Fingo ignis!"

Lily sighed. She smiled despite herself as the flames from all the candles were sucked away from the wickers, into a single ball of fire that twisted into a fiery lion. The beast soundlessly roared and pounced after the shaggy grim.

Next to her the fire burning in the magical hearth dimmed as it the floating candles summoned new flames to light their bare wickers.

"Alice and Frank will be here in less than ten minutes," Lily warned. Not that she truly cared. Chiding the boys about running wild was a relic of her non-magical childhood, in which there had been no easy fixes for messes made. _ Fingo ignis_, she thought, remodeling James' lion into a pair of blazing griffin wings. She let the wings levitate like a promise, and Padfoot couldn't resist. He sat up straight, proud like a Lord as Lily carefully set the 'wings' right above the gleaming fur on his back. When Peter summoned the camera, Padfoot pushed himself on his hind legs and let his tongue loll out.

Everybody was blessedly human when their guests apparated in Godric's Hollow. Not out of a sense of propriety, but because even Frank and Alice didn't know that Sirius, James and Peter were animagi. This war was wrapping them all tight in secrets.

Alice had a big grin, Frank was trying, and failing, not to smile, and Lily gathered with her husband and friends, now curious to hear this _thing_ they were obviously dying to tell them about.

"I'm pregnant," Alice announced. "A boy. Due end of July."

_Oh wow_. Sirius whooped and hugged Alice.

Lily bit back a grin of her own and shared a look with James.

"I told you waiting three months was a muggle thing," he said, his arm squeezing her shoulders.

Four days before, with the_ Specio Infans_ charm, James had giddily informed her that she was pregnant with a tiny three weeks old boy that would be born healthy, barring injury or illness. Despite it, she'd been superstitious.

Of course, James had no idea what precisely made a viable fetus or a mother healthy enough to bear a child; his diagnosis spell had been fully fueled by the desire to just _find out_. He'd blushed when Lily had teased him about using dark arts instead of asking a trained mediwitch to perform the light knowledge-based version of the charm.

"What, you noticed?" Alice said with a huff, misreading their expressions. "What gave it away, the snacks smuggling?"

"Oh no. I'm pregnant too. A boy. Mid-August, although I heard chronic stress makes them come early, so I'm betting on April."

Lily winced at her joke, because April would have her barely five months along, but the others just laughed. It was the miracle of magic. James had looked at her with benevolent confusion when she'd voiced her fears surrounding pregnancy. Reading 'the pregnant witch', she'd understood why. There was a charm for everything, and most of those had already been passed down in Ancient Egypt.

"You're kidding!" Sirius exclaimed while the others congratulated her. "You're just telling me _now_?"

"I didn't know either, Padfoot," Peter said soothingly. "Now, be nice and don't mention godfathers so that they can make a big deal of asking you officially later." He turned to Lily and James with a mock-whisper. "I'll bake a cake that barks."

They grinned and James clapped a very happy Sirius on the back.

Frank summoned a series of vials filled with colored liquids with a flourish of his wand. "Cheers. They're charmed," he added, "the alcohol will vanish as soon as it hits your stomach."

Lily grinned. Now _that_ was what magic was for: getting to enjoy fancy spirits during pregnancy.

"We'll call him Harry," James announced.

If anyone had told Lily at sixteen that James would be at dad at twenty, she would have pitied the poor kid (as in the baby, not James), but now, she could really see it. She marveled at how solid he looked, at how even in times like this he could fill a room with joy and faith in the future.

"_Shhh_," Alice exclaimed. "Don't go asking for trouble! And before anyone rudely asks, yes, our boy's a complete accident. Whatever, though. We'd been putting off having kids for two years now, there's never going to be a perfect time."

James' smile was suddenly sad, a cloud sucking the light out of his face. "No accident here. Like you said: never a perfect time. And why wait to announce the name?" he said softly. "The only pressure to change it could have come from Mum and Dad."

A shadow fell in the room. The Dragon Pox had struck horrendously fast. One day the elder Potters had been healthy, looking closer to forty-five than to their seventy years of age, and the next week Dorea was gone, her magic shriveled, her face disfigured by curse-like scars. Charlus had barely lasted three days more. It was a illness of blood, that struck the elderly, the pureblood, and the dark the hardest, but, like Charlus' death had proven, a life of light magic wasn't always enough. Lily knew that James blamed the toll upgrading the wards of the Manor and of the house at Godric's Hollow had taken on his parents, and he blamed himself, because it had been his joining the Order that had motivated it. It had been barely a month, and Lily still found herself thinking '_huh, I should ask Dorea that_.' She'd lost her own father a few years ago, but it had been a long drawn-out thing, painful but expected (_asbestos poisoning_, the doctors had declared, and of course Petunia had blamed _her_ for withholding magic). Lily couldn't imagine what it was like for James.

"To Dorea and Charles," Lily began before awkwardness could settle in, "everything purebloods should be. May they never be forgotten."

"Never forgotten," the others agreed solemnly. Sirius and James both ducked their heads and then grinned weakly at each other, their eyes shimmering with tears.

"To Harry Potter," Alice said. "May he grow to be the best of the Marauders."

They cheered. Sirius was next to clear his throat. "To baby Longbottom, may he be as fun as his hot mum and as lucky as his dad."

Frank narrowed his eyes. The spirits in Sirius' glass vanished and appeared in Frank's.

Sirius gasped and contemplated his now empty glass with a sad puppy-dog look. He cleared his throat again and raised his glass once more "- _and_ as good as sticking up for himself as his dad, especially when it comes to aforementioned hot wife."

James snorted. Lily bit back a smile. Augusta's early disdain for Alice had been something to behold. Lily was forever grateful that despite some early awkwardness, the Potters had never made her feel like they thought James deserved better.

"Hey, hey! Augusta and I get along _famously_ now."

"Mother knows what's good for her," Frank said with a thin smile. His smile grew broad and warm as he slid his arm around Alice's waist.

Lily couldn't resist. "Be careful, there's a muggle saying : men marry their mothers."

Frank winced, his hand rising to his mouth as he tried to hide his laughter.

"Right." Sirius pretended to throw back his still empty glass "I'm _never_ getting married."

The six cracked up. Frank refilled Sirius glass.

There was just one person missing. "Where's Moony, gentlemen? He said he'd be here."

Lily's inquiry was met with uneasy shrugs from the Marauders. Remus had been meeting with high-ranking order members for a few days now, but he'd stayed very evasive about what exactly he was doing.

"I've got cookies," Peter said with a strained smile as he pulled out a pot big enough to feed a classroom of thirty out of his enchanted backpack. "Moony'll show up."

He didn't. A cat patronus showed up instead, and Minerva's voice informed them that Moony had taken an international portkey to the Balkans.

"What, like Serbia?" Sirius exclaimed. "What's in _Serbia_?"

* * *

The next morning, Lily and James met with Minerva at dawn. Sirius and Peter would have happily come too, but there was too much to do to show up in six at Hogwarts. They'd gathered in Hagrid's hut, bundled in coats and warming charms, and Lily couldn't help smiling at the enthusiasm with which the huge man offered them tea.

"The centaurs gave me some bark ter try out me-self. Tasted a bit watery ter me, but I know yeh kids like things lighter 'an me so I didn'a add too much pepper."

"That's very thoughtful of you, Hagrid," James said. "It's delicious."

Lily wasn't as well-bred as her pureblood husband; her pokerface needed more work. But, for once it was only _uncomfortably_ spicy as opposed to undrinkable. Hagrid beamed as they took small swallows. "Minerva insisted ter brin' 'er own biscuits."

Lily and James smothered their grins in their tea as their former Head of House patted Hagrid's thick arm. "Don't take it personally, Rubeus, you know I'm very particular about my breakfast."

Unfortunately, they soon had to move to more serious topics.

"The Slav and Hungarian werewolf packs have had full citizen status and a political voice in the Slavic Mage Federation for centuries," Minerva explained. "It is one of the reasons the SMF's relations with the Ministry are rather strained." _You bet_. "We just learned that You Know Who has sent an envoy. It's important that Remus be able to speak with the packs' representative before Greyback does."

Lily blinked. "Greyback? You're sure he's You Know Who's ambassador?"

Minerva frowned. "We intercepted an owl. It only mentioned an envoy. We _assumed_ it would be Fenrir Greyback."

"Makes sense," James muttered.

It didn't. It _really_ didn't. But Lily was a muggleborn among the mage-raised. She had learned the hard way not to blurt her opinions and beliefs.

"Why are you sending Remus?" she asked, careful to keep her face and voice neutral.

"You Know Who will use treatment of Britain's werewolves as an argument. We are hoping that Remus can convince them that Albus is sincere in his desire to treat werewolves like full magical citizen."

"Remus will be proof we're not just talk," James agreed.

Lily struggled to hide how vehemently she _disagreed_. Remus had spent his whole life _hiding_. Instead she latched on to Minerva's last words.

"So Dumbledore _does _ aspire to become Minister of Magic and implement those laws? The Longbottoms, the Bones and our other main political supports agree with that? They'd give a seat in the Wizengamot to a werewolf?"

Minerva looked uneasy. "Well, I'm sure that if werewolves help defeat You Know Who, we'll have strong arguments in their favor to at minimum repeal their beast status."

"We must at least _try_," James said. "These people can't be allowed to just get You Know Who's side of the story. Remus will show them how to listen to us on the wireless. He'll be able to tell them not to take the Daily Prophet at face value."

The newspaper had stopped printing outright lies, but it was staying painfully neutral and factual. _Still a pack of cowards. _

"What about the werewolves in Britain?" she said, still struggling not to be _too_ obviously skeptical. "We were told that Greyback had been biting people, that a hostage had been taken for each victim, to keep them loyal and to keep their remaining relatives from making trouble. Have we found where the hostages are kept?"

"We know of a cottage in Scotland. It's warded but no manor, we could..." Minerva sighed, her expression mild but her hands clutching her teacup so hard every vein was visible. "You must understand, there are so many _more_ people that could be taken hostage to replace those who are. The hostages are treated as confined guests, not tortured. That we are certain of. We cannot risk an escalation."

Lily nodded, this time fully sharing the older witch's frustration. "Do we have a list of all those people? Both the hostages and the people who are most at risk?"

Lily knew that look. That mix of anger and helplessness that said 'we must prioritize'. "A list we do have, although whether it is complete... I can find it for you, Lily."

Lily _did_ believe them when they said they were all doing all they could. Minerva was definitely doing more than was wise for her health, and Lily was amazed the older woman didn't fall asleep midway through her own lessons.

"I'd like that, thank you. Could you please tell us where exactly Remus is? Who's he meeting with?" Minerva pursed her lips. Lily put on her best I'm-begging-you-in-a-dignified-way face. "It's _Yugoslavia_. We're not going to impulsively apparate by. He's our friend and he's going to be alone among a pack of foreign werewolves. _Please_."

Minerva McGonagall was a good person. A few hours later Lily felt slightly (but only _very_ slightly) guilty as she asked the travel's agency list of flights for Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. Her mother had recently gone to Yugoslavia with a friend on holidays, so forging the right papers should take no more than an hour.

* * *

As soon as they apparated back in Godric's Hollow, James squeezed Lily's hand, his raised eyebrows as eloquent as any question.

Lily took a slow breath. "I think it's a huge mistake to send Remus. It'll give the opposite of the message we want."

"What do you mean? Moony will understand these people better than any of us."

"You truly think that? Tell me, if you wanted to impress an influential muggle politician, would you rather send, say, Bartemius Crouch, or would you send Argus Filch, figuring that since he has no magic, he'll understand the muggles _so much better?_"

It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. Hard to not make it personal in a world in which if you were a werewolf, or a muggleborn, all too many people were incapable of seeing _anything_ else.

Poor Remus didn't deserve to be compared to Filch. But the look on her husband's face proved she'd scored a point.

"The packs are _centuries_ old," she continued. "It wouldn't surprise me they have a whole culture. It's like sending a muggleborn into a gathering of powerful purebloods, hoping they'll bond over having magic." James flinched. "Sending Remus will tell them 'look, the actual important wizards don't think you're worth their time and/or are scared of being bitten'." Lily sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, James, I really _really_ hope You Know Who sends Greyback! He's the foulest of criminals. Imagine if, say, the Chinese sent us as envoy one of their citizen of English descent, who also happens to be a murderer, a guy who tortures _children_, because 'hey, he's English, you must be just like him!'"

"Yes. Yes, you're right! Merlin, how -. Of course, the Slav werewolves will ask about our werewolves. Is that why you were asking about the hostages?"

"If we're not even trying to help our own citizen, why would they believe any word that comes out of Remus' mouth?" She hugged herself, and the flat stomach in which Harry still felt more like a promise than a living baby. "I just... Even if we did rescue them, and all those other people at risk, there's just no way we can ward a random building strongly enough -"

"Actually, that's the least of our worries," James cut in. "Potter Manor can easily house eighty, if some of the people agree to live in expansible tents. When Mum and Dad upgraded the wards, they secured the food and water apparition points and made sure no house-elves other than Nincy and Kipper could apparate in. It's not Hogwarts but it's bloody safe. And..." James sucked in a breath. "You Know Who would have to be mental to attack a manor. It'd take a siege and we'd win half of the neutrals over within a day."

Lily had refused to go live with James' parents. It wasn't a matter of not getting along, although the Potters had kept treating James like a kid even after graduation. It just wasn't _her_ house. Potter Manor was too grandiose and bizarre for her. It had twenty all-too-spacious rooms (proof mages had never struggled to heat their houses), of which only eight were used regularly, six now that James had moved out. The others were either guest rooms or memorials of sorts, named after the ancestors whose portraits resided inside. Joan Potter's collection of enchanted pots was something to behold. The fifteenth century merchant had made half of the Potter's fortune by herself, and still tried to oversee the Potter's finances and investments from her portrait. But that was the point : it was like a magical interactive museum.

"You wouldn't mind having all these people in your house? You have so many valuables in there-." For months now, the Manor had been converted into a safe-house, but only members of the Order of the Phoenix, or people who'd been carefully vetted by them, had ever been allowed inside.

James shook his head, proving once more that his sense of justice didn't stop at _her_, or muggleborn rights. A pureblood opening their manor to low-class strangers just wasn't done. She kissed his cheek, to make sure he understood she didn't disagree in the slightest.

"It's not worth people's lives," James said, his lips twitching as he stole another kiss before growing serious again. "Two house elves are enough to protect the portraits and what's really valuable. We're talking adult witches and wizards. We can kick out troublemakers and we'll let go those who want to leave. If we could arrange passage to the Americas..." He cast a tempus spell and cursed. "I need to go, Moody's expecting me. Lily, if we want to intercept Moony and get it right with the Slav wolves, we _can't_ wait."

Lily stared. "You want me to fly to Yugoslavia?"

"No," James snapped, "what I _want_ is you to barricade yourself at home until this is all over, _especially_ while you're pregnant. But we must get to Moony, and people would notice if I or Padfoot didn't show up." He lowered his voice, raising his hands in apology. Lily linked her fingers with his, her smile tight. She could tell the difference between being shouted at and being part of an infuriating situation. "It's Frank's day off. He's the Longbottom heir. That'd better be _important_ enough. I'll send him a patronus to tell him to meet you as soon as he can."

James' hug was strong and warm, and Lily returned it fiercely. His lips were hot on her mouth, and tender despite the fury still etched on his face as he apparated away. Fury and _fear_, as if he was scared he'd change his mind if he stayed a second longer.

Lily took a shuddering breath, feeling suddenly small and alone. Well, _she_ was the one who'd brought it up.

Time to go look at plane tickets.

* * *

Night had almost fallen when Lily landed in Ljubljana with Frank and Edgar Bones. Lily had known Frank used his political connections to recruit for the Order on his days off, but she'd not expected the man to apparate with the Secretary to the Head of the DMLA.

"Is it safe to use magic now?" Edgar inquired as they slipped into the woods behind the airport's parking.

Lily had forbidden magic on the plane, not wanting to risk giving away the fact wizards were using muggle transportation. Even their clothes were genuine trousers, sweaters and too-thin coats as opposed to glamoured robes. Of course, that had also meant none of them could discuss anything they wouldn't want overheard. She'd spent most of the three hour flight pretending she knew a lot more about plane engines and aerodynamics than she did.

"It should be," Lily decided, her teeth chattering with cold. Wordlessly, she cast a warming charm.

"Splendid. I hope this enterprise will not take too long, my wife's due in less than two months." Edgar Bones looked very English upper-class, tall, thin and clean-shaven, his short blonde hair combed to the side. He had a serious demeanor, almost austere, yet the facade hid a rich deadpan sense of humor. "I hope I'm at least a honorary member of Dumbledore's Order now."

"To be entirely honest, I may get kicked out after this."

Edgar must have picked up on her nervousness. He smiled a little. "Worry not, this is an unparalleled occasion to make a difference. The Ministry is in shock and paralyzed. We're defending ourselves but there's no thought given about what the political future would look like. The state of things allowed the rise of You Know Who. We cannot just hope to get rid of him and go back to the way things were."

Because she wanted to be taken seriously, Lily nodded her agreement instead of shouting '_where have you people been!_'. She knew the answer already. A lot of witches and wizard, not the majority of those in power, but the majority in the Isles and a fair number among the powerful, were favorable to change. Wanting it _enough_ to risk your life and that of your loved ones was something else. The Death Eaters' hostage strategies were a living nightmare. Diagon Alley was almost deserted these days and many Ministry employees had just stopped coming to work.

"Mother told me in no uncertain terms that she _couldn't_ not forbid me to join the Order of the Phoenix," Edgar added, "and then stressed how intensely proud she was of each and every member, my cousins included." Lily's lips twitched. The humor bit a little close to home for her to be able to laugh. Pride and terror had become close friends of hers too. "Aunt Amelia is the most partisan neutral I have ever met. I've never been good with money, so I'll have to inform her that she paid for this trip."

Frank grinned and Lily just had to laugh.

They double checked the map they'd bought at the airport before apparating. Minerva had mentioned a forest near a place called 'Koprivnik v Bohinju', somewhere in the mountains, some thirty miles East. They focused on the distance, the direction, the altitude change. Frank, the most experienced when it came to apparating in unknown places, went last.

Lily gasped in relief when he returned her right foot to her. Splinching wasn't quite like have a body part torn off (well, Lily had no experience in that and didn't want any), it was like still having the limb only it wasn't _there_. Their tutors had nevertheless stressed that separated body parts had to be rejoined in _seconds_, or the pain would be excruciating.

"You got so focused on the fact we had to apparate _up_ that you made yourself a foot shorter," Frank teased.

"Didn't want to apparate under ground," Lily snipped back as he helped her up. "Thanks, auror Longbottom."

Koprivnik v Bohinju was no town. It was barely a village. A small white church with a slanted black roof was surrounded by a few cottages and a few pastures with a couple of horses. Spruce-covered mountains surrounded them, painted red and gold by the sunset. Unlike the sometimes unsettling majesty of the French Alps, Lily was filled with a sense of peace and warmth.

They changed into their robes, not wanting to start off a diplomatic meeting on the wrong sartorial foot, and cast glamours to look like regular hikers in case muggles spotted them. Now it was only a matter of finding Remus. Frank pulled a small sleeping canari out of his pocket and transfigured it back to its original shape. The barn owl yawned and ruffled its feather, side-eyeing Frank as if it _knew._

"Look Arawn, I purposefully did not pick a mouse or anything you'd eat. We're _the resistance_, the fate of Great Britain rests on your wings."

After another pointed glare, Arawn mellowed and stuck his leg out. Wizard owls were such divas.

_'Hi Moony, political backup's here,'_ Lily wrote on a piece of parchment already spelled against rain and dirt. _'We're in the trees right behind the village church. '_

He knew her writing, and hopefully he'd figure out _which_ village. Otherwise, he'd just have to follow Arawn back. She hoped he'd not left his broom behind.

* * *

Less than twenty minutes later, Moony appeared. He was not alone. A man and a woman, him young and her middle-aged, flanked him. Sleeveless furs fell to the foreigners' knees, covering thick leather trousers (but nothing like the skin-tight current muggle fashion) and jackets. Tattoos decorated their arms and both carried gnarled wands, lowered in a nonthreatening fashion. Arawn flew off the man's arm and settled on a fallen spruce next to Frank.

Remus looked stunned but glad to see the three of them. "These are Anya, and Rok," he hastily introduced. "They speak English. Anya's position is comparable to that of Hogwarts Headmaster. Rok's father is the SMF's main newspaper's chief editor. They're both lycans."

_Werewolves_. Standing tall, almost arrogant, in their immaculate furs, and carrying _wands_. Hope for the future warmed Lily's chest.

"Was it your parents who went to Slovenia for holidays?"

Remus blinked at Frank. Then he winced, understanding filling his face. "No, they went to Sweden. It's safe, Frank. They have been welcoming."

"Apologies, it's standard auror procedure," Frank said with a courteous bow of his head towards their hosts. "We've been dealing with increasing cases of polyjuice, blackmail, the imperius curse, and conflicting magical vows."

Anya excused them with a nod, an enigmatic smile on her lips. She had shaved brown hair, the muscles of a professional boxer, and the leathery skin of someone who'd lived their whole life outside. Lily's throat constricted and she fought the urge to wipe her suddenly clammy hands on her robes. She hadn't prepared for this. She'd not even read _one_ book on the Slavic Mage Federation.

Edgar cleared his throat. "Edgar Bones, Secretary to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. This is Frank Longbottom, Heir of the Ancient and Noble house of Longbottom, and Lily Evans, married into the Potter line, who would probably be apprenticed to the Unspeakables if people were judged by character and ability in England."

"Because of lycanthropy or breeding?" Rok spoke slowly and rolled his 'r's. Unlike Anya, had he been in standard robes, Lily didn't think she'd have paid the stout blonde any particular notice.

"I'm muggleborn," she said flatly. There was a chance only _pureblood_ werewolves were considered citizen by the SMF, but she would not hide who she was.

No scorn, but some... _doubt_? filled Anya's eyes. "Show us your power." The woman's accent was lighter. She did sound foreign but Lily would not have been able to pinpoint where from.

Lily swallowed. Remus, Edgar and Frank were all looking at her, more expectant than alarmed. _Alright. Power_.

She thought of James and his smile, of him falling down on the bed next to her with a thick book and asking her to make sense of Henry VIII and religion, like she and her world mattered just as much as his own. Of James' mother whispering _'I see some of myself in you'_ and never finishing her sentences with _'for a muggleborn'_. Of Albus Dumbledore staring gravely at her : _'I underestimated you, Miss Evans. I am proud to count you among our numbers.'_

"Expecto Patronum!"

Her doe patronus burst out of her wand, silver and solemn. It didn't bounce about cheerfully like when she used memories of laughter love and the silliness that made life worth living, but it shone bright and confident in the falling night. Lily struggled not to smile, her eyes shining with the same confidence, basking in the certainty that she was _worthy_.

"Ah... You are one of those light mages who, when one says _power_, cannot think beyond a patronus?"

They didn't sound _unimpressed_, but... Lily took a deep breath. Alright. _Power_. _Dark Arts_. Unsurprisingly, her thoughts went to Sev. To missed opportunities and could-have-beens.

She focused on levitating. It had been among her first magic, on the swings she and Petunia played on as girls. Accidental magic was mostly all dark. Kids willed for things with all their heart without worrying about the how. Lily had flown off swings and fixed the flowers her father had sat on (it had been a particularly eventful Mother's Day). She had slammed doors to prevent Tuney from walking out during arguments, and made Janet Wilson's skin erupt in painful pustules when the girl wouldn't shut up about redheads having no soul.

Dark Arts fed on emotions, and the war had tied a permanent knot of fear in Lily's stomach. Lily usually tried to ignore it. Now, she focused on it, her eyes glazing over. Her throat clenched as she thought of James and Sirius hurt. Ice paralyzed her muscles as she contemplated all that could go wrong. _What if they found Mum and killed her? Whose death would she discover in the muggles paper? What if they failed to fix things? What if one night, James didn't come back?_ The fear filled her, squeezing her lungs, sizzling in her body and begging her to move, to _get away_.

She felt her wand hum, her magic come alive and pushing her _up_. The fear left her with a rush, swallowed up in her magic, leaving her empty, blessedly _fearless_. And three feet above the ground.

She zoomed around her audience of five, her legs folded as if an invisible carpet lay under her. She smiled pointedly at her audience. Lupin was staring wide-eyed and Frank was frowning, his distaste obvious. Edgar looked uneasy, his hands clasped, but he nodded in encouragement.

Anya looked the happiest of them all as Lily kept floating. "I believe you now. Welcome. Follow us."

A shiver ran up her spine. Suddenly Anya's toothy smile felt sharper. Suddenly, the lycan's clothes sharply reminded her they came from dead animals. Pictures of vicious werewolves, tearing the skin off agonizing cows filled her mind. She couldn't help wondering why Anya valued dark arts more than she did light. Lily shook those thoughts away. They felt distant somehow, intrusive, as if they weren't fully hers. '_No! more fear!'_ her magic protested, '_more power_.' The whisper was weak, easy to resist. Except, years ago, when she'd cast her first dark spells, there hadn't even been a whisper.

And that was why Lily said nothing as Frank failed to hide his disapproval. Whether using dark arts was a _worthy_ trade-off and how much use was reasonable was not a debate for tonight.

She took Anya's callused hand when the woman handed it to her.

* * *

**Author's notes**

For why the Potters chose the name "Harry" and why they married and had a kid so soon after graduating, check out chapter 1 of my story '_Lots of Love (and some Dark Magic)'. _That chapter also gives a lot of insight on Lily's and Severus' relationship after fifth year (it's not essential to this story, but it does shed some light on some of the subtext in the upcoming chapter).

I realized I made Amelia Susan's great-aunt (because of her age in the movies, I didn't double check), so Edgar is her nephew in this story, not her brother. _Mea culpa._

**Thanks for reading! Don't hesitate to share your thoughts^^. **


	4. Time to Act

The six apparated in a dark clearing among almost-bare trees and towering spruces. The splatter of a nearby waterfall filled the still night's air. The sudden, unnatural warmth was very welcome. A large U-shaped magic-carved massive trunk faced the mountains, offering whoever seated on it a breathtaking view. Above, the rising moon was half-full. Silver spheres shot out of Anya's and Rok's wands, casting enough light for them all to see each other comfortably.

"Why have you come?" Anya asked, gesturing them to sit. "Mr. Lupin expected to be sole envoy."

"Fear made us act hastily," Edgar smoothly answered. "We don't want to send the wrong message by treating you with less regard than we would other foreign diplomats."

"So you also are here to discourage us from listening to this Greyback."

"If it's _Greyback_ he sent you, I don't think we really needed to come, Ma'am," Lily cut in. "That he's the kind of werewolf who thrives in England is our deepest shame."

"Yours or that of all? Werewolves _are_ a threat, even to experienced mages."

"Quite a number of wizards and witches are a threat, even to experienced mages... We could have laws about confinement during the full moon that don't compromise their status as people the rest of the month."

"Confinement," Anya repeated flatly, her expression inscrutable. "Because the wolf is a problem."

Lily winced, out of her depth. Back home, already saying 'werewolves aren't beasts' made her alarmingly progressive. Being needled for not being progressive _enough_ was rather sobering. "I don't know if it has to be. I'm hoping to learn from you."

Anya softened, but it didn't last as she turned back towards Edgar. "Mrs. Potter's freshness is appreciated, but she is muggleborn in Britain. What can you make Britain do? Why would we act for you?"

"We must repeal beast status. We must reward active resistance against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named -"

A snort interrupted him. "'_Dark Lord_' is pompous title, yes," Rok said with a sardonic half-smile, "but surely, you have something to call him that keeps him... _human_. Why help build that man's myth?"

Oh Lily was really starting to like them. "_Mr. Mort_ isn't traced," she volunteered.

Edgar's lips twitched. "Perfect, thank you, Lily. I was saying, if we reward active resistance, to wizards and witches first, and then include werewolves-"

"Who are _not_ witches and wizards?"

Edgar's jaw clenched at being interrupted yet again, and irritation creased Frank's eyes. Remus was blushing, but Lily, who'd been called all too often 'muggle' by purebloods (and some half-bloods) who didn't want to get caught using the slur _mudblood_, understood why Rok refused to let it go. How could these people trust Edgar when his words showed such ingrained prejudice?

"Stopping Greyback is something we support, in theory," Rok intervened. "In practice, we are not more lethal than your Albus Dumbledore. Why would we take a risk you refuses to take? And for what ? Change in Britain?" He leaned backwards on the bench, his arms crossed in skepticism. "You believe that? Change in a nation must come from within."

"What about the werewolves Greyback bit?" Lily intervened. "Could you welcome them? Show them they don't have to hate themselves? Reassure their families?"

Next to her Remus sat slightly hunched, his eyes wide as he stared at his feet. Lily fought the urge to hug him.

Anya's soft laughter was heavy with cynicism. "Your Daily Prophet's headline will read 'werewolves go live with werewolves: good riddance.' and no single law will be changed."

"But seeing their loved ones thrive, find jobs, have families, that might change the way people perceive werewolves in the long term," Frank said. "It will make it easier for us, and by us I mean a progressive government, to welcome you, already established influential and foreign werewolves, to dispel some of the most damaging myths."

"We call ourselves _lycans_, not werewolves," Rok intervened, irritation bleeding into his words. This conversation was _not_ going well. "Werewolves are those who are taken over by the transformation. No control." He spared Remus an indulgent glance. His voice softened. "You're given no chances to learn control."

"Remus has told us of he was chosen as envoy in - " Anya frowned. "You disapprove, Mrs. Potter?"

This time, Lily hadn't bothered to hide her opinion about Remus' mission. "Remus is one of my dearest friends. He's remarkably intelligent, he's a talented wizard, but for all I know he's a shitty werewolf. I don't see why _that's_ considered what he brings to the table."

"He _is_ a shitty werewolf." Anya agreed with sudden glee, baring an array gleaming teeth. "Like a kicked pup. Completely out of touch with his wolf. I can smell the submissiveness on him."

Poor Remus looked like he wanted to disappear. Lily squeezed his arm. "You're a great wizard," she whispered. "You have nothing to be ashamed of. Sit up straight."

Remus did, his eyes grateful, but he still looked overwhelmed and uneasy.

"Mr. Lupin told us he has privilege. That your leader, Dumbledore, treats him like being not like beast. He feels debt for that. For _being allowed school_." Rok's flat gaze made Lily suddenly ashamed. "Tomorrow, I come with you : I am welcomed like honored guest in Order, or I am hidden?"

Edgar faltered, he looked at Frank. "Has there been mention of welcoming a lycan envoy?" Frank looked at Remus who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"Why do you keep Mr. Lupin's lycanthropy secret?"

"To protect him," Frank immediately answered."I learned because Remus told me. I am proud to count among his friends. But You Kn- Mr. Mort is a skilled legilimens and there are many ways to make people talk."

"I found out today," Edgar admitted. "I'm happy to have learned it's possible for a werewolf to safely attend Hogwarts. It proves there's no reason not to considering giving the opportunity to others."

"To protect him from the Order," Anya concluded.

"No!" Frank exclaimed. "From ordinary citizen who would take offense. From Death Eaters."

"Liar." A shiver ran up Lily's spine despite Anya's soft tone. "They know. Greyback turned him. One of their death eaters was almost bitten by him."

_What_? When? Who?

Remus' face had lost all color.

"Under vow to keep silent. He showed Mr. Mort with mind arts. We were told this by Mr. Mort's envoy. He said you would come, Mr. Lupin. Do you want to see this envoy? You outnumber him."

_What-_ Lily had jumped to her feet, she wasn't the only one. "I'll go," she decided, mouth suddenly dry. "I'll go, Mr. Mort already despises me."

"You can't go, you're pregnant!"

"What?" Remus exclaimed.

"We announced it yesterday evening."_ 'You'd said you'd be there, Moony_,' felt unnecessarily petty. "Alice is too. Edgar isn't a known member of the Order, he should stay hidden." She narrowed her eyes at Frank. "I'm indeed pregnant, which means I can afford to sit around and let things get worse even _less_ than I used to."

"Rok, take them. I will talk politics with Mr. Bones."

Edgar nodded. He didn't look all that thrilled to be left alone with Anya, but he sat back down gracefully and waved them off.

This time, they didn't apparate, they simply walked. Fast enough for Lily's heart to pound and her calves to ache. Frank was likewise breathing hard. Remus, like Rok, had barely broken a sweat. He looked ill, though, and Lily could guess why.

"Who did you almost bite? When?" she whispered at Remus. She couldn't remember a single full moon for which Remus had been unaccounted for. Padfoot, Prongs or Wormtail, and often more than one, had always made a point to keep him company.

Remus wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Moony, the envoy will probably throw it in our face. Let's hear it from you."

He didn't answer. She sucked in a breath to insist when he finally spoke. "Snape."

Lily stopped in her tracks. "_What?_" _Sev?_ She grabbed Remus' arm. "When!"

"Fifth year, March. He was following and Sirius let him come believing he deserved it for being nosy. James stopped him before he got too close but he saw me. Dumbledore gave Sirius detention. And told Snape to keep quiet. To protect me."

Lily dazedly started walking again, because Rok called and she had to. She couldn't speak. The words, no, the _thoughts_ wouldn't form.

"I... I was angry Lily, very angry at Padfoot," Remus' whispers were thick with pleading. "It's... That's when he decided he'd go live with the Potters, you know. He did realize he'd behaved with Snape in a way his family would have been proud of. That it was wrong."

Lily nodded slowly. Except she couldn't shake it off. That it had been _Sev_. That it had been _at Hogwarts_. That he'd had to keep silent. To not tell anyone until _Voldemort_ got into his mind. How was it different from obliviating muggles when wizards committed uncomfortable crimes?

"Do you know if the Headmaster talked to Severus after that? Or did he just force him to shut up about it and pretend it never happened?"

Remus looked down once more. Lily squeezed his arm because it was not _him_ she was upset at.

_'Yes, they're _that kind_ of pureblood, yes they're dark, but they treat me with respect!'_

_'I respect you, Sev! You don't have to be friends with Mulciber and Avery to get respect!'_

_'Don't I? Funny, I was invited to the Slug Club only after I became publicly close to 'those' purebloods, as you call them. And you got invited because I was, and Slughorn had no more excuses to exclude you.'_

Silenced. Like he was trash. Lily's hands shook. She remembered the excruciating conversation she'd had with James after their seventh date, when she'd finally admitted to herself it might get serious between them. The one where she'd needed to hear why he'd decided to humiliate Severus in public like that after their OWL exams.

_'Bored. Black was _bored. _So you went out pick a victim?'_

_'Sirius wasn't just bored. He was less than a week away from returning for the last time to his awful family, trying to figure out how to make sure he'd succeed in leaving for good. I just cared about distracting my best friend, whatever it took. I tried not to think what might happen if his parents found out before he could make it. They abused him, Lily. Have you ever felt like that? Seeing someone you love hurt and being helpless to help?_' The fact that James had smiled weakly and immediately added '_Stupid question._' had saved him from a very painful hex. _'I'm not proud of it, Lils.'_

Lily had had to decide if it was good enough. If James not bullying anyone else, and apologizing publicly to Severus that time Severus had provoked him in the Great Hall in seventh year, was good enough. Perhaps it was forgiveness, perhaps it was selfishness, but she had decided that yes, it was _good enough_. She had desperately wished Sev had come back too, not just with apologies but with _proof_, saying _'I've decided not to ever talk to those death eaters again'_, vowing he'd never consider _any_ muggleborn inferior instead of acting like _she_ was special.

"Sirius -" Remus began.

"It's Dumbledore I'm more angry about," Lily cut in, her whisper so low Remus wouldn't have caught it without his wolf-hearing. "It's good to know he binds people to silence when they inconvenience him. I wonder if there have been others."

But then, what kind of fool was she? _Of course_ the Headmaster would silence people. Magic made things so _easy_. Kids learned to play nice because there were _consequences_ if you didn't. Magic changed everything. Dumbledore was a remarkably moral, considering everything he could achieve with a flick of his wand.

She suddenly bumped against Frank. "Remus is going alone," he said, with a restraining hand on her shoulder. "We'll be standing here, listening in. If the envoy feels smug about being right about us, they might let slip valuable information." His voice and expression were steel, Lily was facing the auror, not her friend, and this time, she could find no logical reason to argue.

Cloaked by a disillusionment spell, she and Frank let Remus and Rok lead the way.

* * *

A lithe, brown-haired young man, who'd been comfortably reading at wand-light by one of the streams, jumped to his feet when he saw Remus and Rok.

"Ah, Lupin. You must be so proud of the privilege Dumbledore conferred you."

Crouch. _Bartemius Crouch Jr._ Lily stared. The man had been two years ahead of them at Hogwarts. He'd started one year early (a lot of things were possible when your father was _the_ Bartemius Crouch.) He was a good student, and powerful. Sev had once pointed him to her in awe during their first year, saying he'd lasted a whole fifteen seconds against Bellatrix Black in a duel, something most of the then O.W.L students had failed at.

Lily remembered thinking the Slytherin cute, even charming. He'd been one of Slughorn's favorites. Knowing the Dark Mark was branded on his forearm, her stomach heaved just from looking at him.

"_You_," Remus said, mirroring some of Lily's shock. "Lily spoke of you, after those Slug Club dinners. You never were among those who called her a muggle, or worse."

Crouch rolled his eyes. "How rude. Why should I care what's in someone's veins unless I want children with them?" He straightened, cocky and smiling like he was showing off in the playground. "What _did_ Evans say about me? Except that I was handsome and funny?"

Yes. Funny guy. A bit too good at hiding his true self. She'd have pegged him as one of those opportunistic neutrals, not a Death Eater.

"What do you gain, from serving such a monster?"

Crouch smiled. His eyes blazed with hate. "Monsters thrive in our Isles, haven't you noticed? Take Daddy: nice of him, to allow aurors to kill Death Eaters, and to forgive so readily those who 'accidentally' killed people they wrongly _suspected_ to be Death Eaters. I've got to tell you: Nestor McKay? Not one of ours. I have no clue why that poor sod's in Azkaban. Have no clue about over a third of them to be honest. Not sure Father's not just chucking any person caught using dark arts in there to pretend he's efficient."

_Nestor McKay._ The name meant nothing to Lily, but from the way Frank stiffened next to her it meant something to _him_.

"Father really does hate dark arts..." Crouch cleared his throat and squared his shoulders as he turned to Rok. "Obviously, I agree with the Dark Lord. Too much weakness. Hundreds of newspaper articles about how dangerous werewolves are get written, but nobody cares about finding a solution." He jabbed a finger straight at Remus. "Remember your _dear friend_, Severus? He's working with Master Belby. They're calling it Wolfsbane. It's going to make Belby rich and Severus less poor. I brought some for our lycan hosts. Would be rude to make a potion for werewolves without even talking to one, don't you think?"

_Sev_. Lily couldn't breathe. She'd heard he was studying for his mastery in Morocco. A mastery was three years, two if one was particularly gifted. It had barely been over a year since they'd graduated. She had clung onto the hope her former best friend had become a Death Eaters to have study opportunities he'd have been denied as the half-blood son of a disowned witch, and that he'd otherwise distanced himself from them. _God, wasn't she good at fooling herself?_

"What does the potion do?" Remus asked tightly. He stood stiff while Crouch lazily paced. Remus wasn't the predator here.

"Silence the wolf," Rok said. "Makes you into kind of one very exhausted animagus. It dulls the pain of transformation. I tested it myself." _What? When? How long had Death Eaters been in contact with the lycans? _"The full dose is too strong: good for mages terrified of their wolf, debilitating for lycans. We are very interested to test lower doses. We hope to accelerate greatly the transition from werewolf to lycan."

Remus looked thunderstruck. _A potion that removed the pain. That made you like an animagus. _Lily wished she could go to him.

"So, you're... buying that potion," Remus asked Rok, shock still obvious in his voice. "That money will be used-"

"Yes," Rok cut in. "And we'll ask for the wolves Greyback turned without consent and the hostages." Crouch started at that. Clearly, it was news to him. "Once they are here, and you give us magical vow of truth that there are none left, we will pay."

Crouch slowly nodded, all flippancy gone. "We can do that," he muttered.

"You'll be funding -"

"Yes. And saving people," Rok snapped, his voice almost a growl. "You I believe are good people. But I don't believe you have power. Prove me wrong. Prove me the Order can act. Prove you can give us more than Mr. Mort."

Crouch choked at _Mr. Mort_. He recovered swiftly, his face easing into a sardonic, creepy smile. "See, Lupin, we came with a potion. What did you come with?"

"Greyback will keep killing and changing -."

"Then kill him! Imprison him," Rok exclaimed, arms open as if he wanted to shake Remus. "It will make good argument of your power."

Crouch's posture betrayed he was far from relaxed, but he gave only a shrug. "Fair's fair."

"You use werewolves-"

Crouch groaned. "Come on! People who've made life the hardest for werewolves, people like _Father_, we're going to get rid of them. Hopefully soon. Hopefully permanently. Admit it, if there was no Dark Lord, the Order would not lift a finger for your kind. You're only here because we came _first_. If we lose, and Daddy isn't dead, Dumbledore's order won't replace him. You'll try to work _with_ him." His shoulders shook as he silently laughed at the absurdity of it.

_Whatever had Mr. Crouch done to make his son hate him so? _Worse, Remus had taken a step back, his shoulders slouched in defeat. As if he agreed.

"You believe a half-blood who harnesses blood prejudice to kill his way to power will make things better?"

Crouch lost his smile, he shook his head slightly. "See, Lupin, I'm surprised your people didn't pull the Riddle card that time Evans and Potter wrote their own Prophet issue."

_Wait, Crouch knew -._

"You think anybody smart _cares_?" Crouch mocked. "The Dark Lord values power, talent and loyalty. He rises and we rise with him. That's all there is to it. Our lycan hosts can give us power, enough that we'll happily collar Greyback, so we have a deal. My piece of advice, Lupin? Tell your friends to portkey here. Tell your parents, I mean your _mum_, since I hear your stellar dad didn't stick around long after you got bitten. Then _stay_. Beautiful mountains. Friendly powerful lycans. Even wolfsbane maybe, if you ask nicely." His pitiless smile turned into a sneer. "Don't go telling everyone he was born Riddle. It'd be such a stupid thing to die over. Notice how _Dumbledore _is kindly keeping mum."

It wasn't fair to pit Remus, peaceful non-confrontational Remus, against Crouch. Remus wilted under the assault, especially the reminder he had been bitten because Lyall Lupin had made some very public nasty claims about werewolves. Yes, the man had appealed to Dumbledore and funded the construction of the Shrieking Shack and the enchantments around the Whomping Willow, to get his only child an education, but it only meant so much to a boy who had barely seen his father twice a year since his sixth birthday.

"Yes, this Order sounds very accommodating."

Maybe it was Rok's exasperated tone, maybe it was something else, but Lily suddenly realized what the lycans had been telling them all along.

_'Show us your power.'_

_'Why would we take a risk you refuses to take?'_

_'Change in a nation must come from within.'_

_'You outnumber him.'_

_'Prove me the Order can act.'_

And here they were, hiding behind the trees, listening in while Remus chatted with a Death Eater.

She stepped away from Frank. _Engorgio!_ She visualized the charm transparent, the magic pooling around Crouch's wand hand and ensnaring muscles, bones and tissue. It required greater focus, but light and color, seeing spells shoot from the want and fly for the target, was a construct of the mind. There was no reason a levitation charm made no sparks whereas a stunning curse streaked for its target, other that light magic was shaped by understanding. She focused on bone growing, on muscle cells and blood vessels multiplying, on skin and tissues expanding. Hours of anatomy and biology lessons fed the spell without Lily having to consciously recall them. Light magic fed on knowledge: the more precise, the stronger the spell.

Crouch's hand quadrupled in volume. He stumbled, falling to the side under the weight. His wand fell out of his rope-sized fingers.

Suddenly, his wand was in his left hand. The earth before him exploded in a shower of dirt, grass and rocks as Crouch rolled on the ground. Blue lightning burst out of the storm of rocks, straight for Remus.

"Merlin!" Frank cursed, displacing himself closer to Remus as he whipped up a shield spell.

Lily frantically wiped her dust-filled eyes and blinked at the now screaming shapes fighting in the gloom. A streak of purple hit a gleaming silver shield.

Lily ducked out of the way of the deflected spell and hastily cast anti-apparition wards. The Dark Mark was a beacon Voldemort used to join his followers or send reinforcements. And also to make sure nobody could impersonate one of his Death Eaters in his presence.

She faltered when she realized Rok was standing close by, wand in hand, staring appraisingly at them all. But he didn't seem eager to intervene.

"If we win, you'll help us?" she gasped as her wards soared all around them.

"It is possible." An appraising smile had replaced his earlier exasperation. "You should be grateful for opportunity to capture an enemy."

Lily took a shuddering breath and tried to make sense of the three fighting wizards. Crouch was fast and fought with literal fire. He'd also fixed his wand-hand. Flames were appearing everywhere headed for Frank and Remus with murderous precision while the two deflected and danced out of the way. Remus... _Was Remus fighting with his eyes_ _shut_? Disarming hexes, body binds and all kinds of incapacitating spells shot out of his wand but few ever came close enough to need a shield spell.

Frank was oddly slow, seemingly unable to meet the assault with more than shielding spells. Lily focused on Crouch, confident he'd yet to notice her. That's he'd figured Frank had cast the _engorgio_. There was some kind of shield or charm sticking to the Death Eater like a second skin, a crisscross of swirling patterns all over his skin and clothes. She narrowed her eyes, suddenly transfixed.

A yawn broke Lily's jaw. She gasped, alarm surging through her as she instinctively looked away. Her mind instantly cleared.

No wonder Frank was slow.

_Glacies terram. _Under the three dueling wizards, frost covered the grass, in seconds becoming a thick slate of ice. The fires faltered. The three slipped and fell with various degrees of swearing.

_Lineam Luminis!_ A thin beam of blinding light shot out of Lily's wand. She brandished her wand like a laser source, willing it into Crouch's face. He dove behind a tree, summoning a protective ring of dark flames around him as he struggled to find his balance.

_Pellucidum! _The tree between her and Crouch transparent._ Lineam Luminis._

The hypnotic coat of magic dissolved, struck by Frank's _Finite. _A weighted net fell over Crouch, soon sliced into ribbons, but while Crouch was distracted by her and Frank, Remus physically pounced on his wand arm.

A sharp crack followed by angry sparks betrayed the untimely end of Crouch's wand as the two men ended up wrestling in the muddy grass.

Crouch screamed but he couldn't match Moony in raw strength. He gasped and slumped, fainted. A faint shimmer of air around Crouch's face had betrayed Frank's oxygen vanishing spell.

The clearing was pitch dark now, barely lit by Rok's single silver light-orb. Distant high-pitch bird chatter mixed in with the burble of the stream. _Lumos!_ She winced at the sudden light and checked her wards. Nobody had tried to apparate in. Someone had tried to apparate _out_. Her stomach churned. Good old guilt. Her well-meaning parents had raised her thinking the world reasonably just and reasonably safe. Well, too bad. She was a soldier now.

"Lily, what were you thinking! He could have cast a killing curse at Remus!"

"No," Lily whispered. "_No_." She said more forcefully. "I know him."

They'd gone to school together. They'd laughed together. She'd called him Barty and he'd called her Lily. He'd apologized for other Slytherins at the Slug Club. He'd teased her and Sev good-naturedly when he'd caught them under the Hogwarts roofs in fourth year, hiding from Gryffindors and Slytherin alike to not have to defend their friendship. Bartemius was... _real_. And now he was right there, at their mercy, branded by the worst of wizards.

"He doesn't want Remus dead. You can be a Death Eater and not be able to cast an unforgivable on people you went to school with. We're making them into more dangerous monsters than they are." _'Why help build that man's myth? _Rok had said._ Why indeed?_

"Lily, Frank can either of you transfigure a human into an animal?" Remus intervened softly. Ever the peace-maker. "It won't last an hour if I do it."

"An hour's not far off my best either," Frank admitted through clenched teeth, his fury still obvious.

Lily shook her head apologetically. She might manage a _half_ hour. James would do it without breaking a sweat. Maybe Sirius could manage it. But _her_ strength was charms and potions. _And on that topic -_

"Make him drink the draught," she said, opening her belt pouch. "It silences magical bindings, so it should put his mark asleep too."

Lily never left the house without a few healing potions, pastes and antidotes, a calming draught, and a draught of living death. Potions could be easily stolen or triggered by an expert dueler, as Alastor Moody had been all too happy to show her, so she stuck with things she wouldn't hate to see fall in Death Eater hands.

"Should," Frank said tightly. "Alright, you started this, Lily. What now? We can't take the _plane_ with him. Transfigured or not."

"You were about to let him leave_, auror_?"

The three turned to Rok. From the non-destroyed state of the woods around them, the lycan had been casting some fixing spells.

Rok bowed his head at Lily. "I am happy you listen"

"Yes, you want us to fight!" Remus exclaimed, suddenly agitated. "I understand! But Mr. Mort will just kill ten people tomorrow, muggles probably, and it'll be _our_ fault!"

"Your Ministry cannot tell when magic is cast around muggles? Then what is stopping you from gathering one intercept team? You can be ready. If they then turn on mages, you told you have a wireless and that mages can send distress signal. If your Order means to only react why not surrender today? It will save many lives."

_Whose lives? Not muggleborns'- _Lily shut her mouth before her thoughts became harsh words. The Order had always been focused on rescuing people. On recruiting. On learning their enemies' names. On getting the Ministry to stand firm. Attack wasn't a priority. The idea of risking your life to kill someone else wasn't appealing and capture was increasingly difficult. Crouch Senior had ordered marked witches and wizards to be immediately taken to Azkaban, but the Dark Lord always seemed to _know_ within minutes whenever one of his Death Eaters had been incapacitated. And that was without taking hostages into account.

"I need to contact Moody. _Now_. We need to get out of here. If You Kn- Mr. Mort traces us -"

"This man is more valuable to you alive than dead?"

Lily froze. Her mouth opened, then shut. Reasons _not to_ kill Crouch filled her mind: information, fear of retaliation. But those were all excuses. The truth was much simpler: this was _Barty_. She just _couldn't_. Whatever it was that made people able to kill, whether it was with a gun or a wand, she didn't have it. Maybe it could trained into her, maybe she had to get Veritaserum in Crouch and get him to confess, maybe then he'd reveal horrors and she'd manage it in the throes of fury. But not like this.

And neither Remus, nor even Frank, _could_. Perhaps that was the tragedy of their Order.

Lily took a slow breath. "He'll make a good hostage." It was time for the Order to show some teeth. "Rok, do you please have a phone we could borrow?"

She hoped she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

* * *

**Author's note :**

I've read up a lot about soldiers and everything seems to conclude that even trained soldiers often don't even try to kill at close range (and even more if they're not fighting for their lives at that moment). I'm not trying to make the Order incompetent, just outnumbered and out of their depth (and, understandably, terrified). Add to that that wizarding England doesn't sound like it has anything stronger than a police force (the aurors), and most of the Order are not aurors (or very recent ones). Lastly, most of everyone they'll fight against are people they know (or if they don't, they're the cousin of someone they know).

Even Death Eaters don't kill many witches and wizards (for now), the victims have been mostly muggles (not considered people), whereas bribes, blackmail, hostages and varying levels of torture are used to control mages through fear and greed (and in the magical world, everything can be spelled/potioned better, at least the physical things, so it's easier to convince yourself it's less of big deal).

Don't hesitate to share your thoughts^^.


	5. Setting Up the Board

**Thanks for those who reviewed, followed and favorited. After some flailing around, I've finally got a better idea of what I want to do with this story, so updates should be more frequent. **

* * *

Rok disapparated to go find Anya and Edgar, leaving Lily, Frank and Remus alone in the clearing with Barty Crouch Junior.

Crouch was swaying, blindfolded, silenced, a magic-numbing potion coursing through his veins. There would be no dosing the Death Eater twice. Magic hated to be bound : the potion was one mages built a resistance to very quickly. They had a couple of hours, four at best, to figure out what to do with him.

"How's your legilimency?" Frank muttered, wringing his hands. "We can't let him speak and say his master's name." _If only they could develop a truth serum that forbade to speak certain words.._.

"I've never practiced legilimency. It's dark arts." It came out snippier than Lily intended. She knew that people like Frank hadn't given up on dark arts for fun but because generations of wizards just as talented and well-intentioned as she was had failed to not let such magics twist their emotional responses. Still, thanks for getting Rok and Anya to take them seriously after she'd shown them that flying spell would have been nice.

"Can we be sure he didn't say his master's name while we fought?" Frank added tightly.

They turned to Remus, whose above-average hearing was one of lycanthropy's few perks. He shook his head. "The fire-spells were loud. I heard nothing but he could have whispered."

_Damn it. _

She started, instinctively raising her wand when Edgar and the lycans returned.

Edgar stared incredulously at the captured Death Eater. "Mr. Crouch's _son_?" he mouthed.

"Do you have somewhere heavily warded we could go?" Lily asked the lycans. "Something that blinds all tracking spells?"

She smiled in relief when Anya nodded.

* * *

In Potter Manor's Chamber of Jewels, tall glass cabinets held thousands of small enchanted ceramics filled with still-fresh herbs, spices and alchemical powders. Erasmus Potter had taken up the craft that had given the family its surname and sought to ennoble it by crafting luxurious containers for rare substances. His desire to be accepted among wizarding gentry had almost ruined the family but also marked the beginning of the Potters' days as manor owners.

The dizzying display of craftsmanship seemed rather lost on Alastor Moody. In his portrait, the one-hundred-and-thirty years old Erasmus stared gloomily at this umpteenth crude guest that had no interest at all in his lifetime of acquired knowledge. '_There is a war,' _young James had said apologetically, and so Erasmus let those Order members blather on about warcraft in _his_ room, counting the days until mages would deign once more care about _civilization_.

In the middle of the room. James forced his gaze steady as his boss stared daggers at him.

"You did _what?_" Moody growled.

James refused to hang his head. Moony and Lily deserved better.

"Sending Remus as an envoy was a cock up, Sir. We had little time to react and made a call."

Lily had called her mother by telephone, and Rose Evans had called Kipper, using the enchanted pocket mirror they'd given her. Despite her worry, the woman's bubbly enthusiasm at using a magical object had shone through.

Moody struck his new wooden leg against the floor. James flinched. Instead of charming the peg to look like a real limb Alastor had taken to it, saying it'd keep them hotheads aware of their own mortality. But damn it if James would give the wizard the satisfaction of staring.

"So now Miss Potter, Bones and Lupin are stuck with a Death Eater hostage, with an auror detail of _one_."

"Not if the Slavs are cooperating."

"Brave of you to trust foreigners with the life of your pregnant wife."

_Screw you._ "With all due respect, Sir, I think they care more about Britain's werewolves than the Order does." And the Order had been fine with sending Moony _alone_. Lecturing James about taking calculated risks was bloody hypocritical.

"A hostage exchange," Alastor spat. "You think You Know Who gives a hoot about Crouch Junior? That he'll nicely give us Greyback's victims?" The older auror harrumphed, pausing to skewer James with a glare. "Don't get me wrong, Potter, I support swinging hard. But don't think to blindside me ever again, lad. We're going to need Albus for this."

"Mr. Dumbledore will oversee the hostage exchange?"

"No, you teapot, we need him to protect a location with a Fidelius Charm. Stick Crouch inside, get the hostages returned to the same safe-house. Avoid an ambush."

_Right. Clever._ "Why isn't You-Know-Who using Fidelius charms?" While the charm was well beyond what James could cast, it couldn't be beyond Lord Voldemort and his best people.

"One, in a war of refugees and hostages, the secrecy is a logistics nightmare. Two, a charm like that is a drain on both the caster's and the secret keeper's magic. If you cast one, you'll feel like you're constantly missing on a couple of hours' sleep. Albus could pull off three, but then even you'd have a chance at beating him in a duel." _Merlin_."You-Know-Who already has that mark sucking off his followers' magic. If he starts weighting them down with more bindings... Assuming there's anybody that demon even trusts." Moody's smile was ugly. "Nah, Potter, You-Know-Who _wants_ us to attack his forts. He won't care if we succeed, as long as his people send enough of us six feet under."

"Have you tried cockatrice spit?" Erasmus interjected with stilted politeness. "It is a most powerful petrificating agent. There is an ounce of it in one of the jade pots."

James shot the long-suffering portrait an indulgent glance. "There's been an antidote for cockatrice spit since the 1930s, Erasmus. But thank you."

The elderly wizard flushed. "Then why is it not _here_! Why are you not expanding my collection-"

"Enough," Moody snapped. "You portraits are a potential liability anyway, we should isolate you all in a room where nothing of import is said."

"How _dare_ you-"

James swallowed a sigh and cast a silencing charm on his ancestor. As apoplectic as he was, Erasmus would have forgiven them by the morning. In the wizarding world, artists who painted rancorous portraits had short careers.

"Talking of liabilities, Potter. You truly plan to host those wolves _here_? People who we _know_ have being parlaying with_ Death Eaters_?"

The horrific destruction of the Meadowes' house had proven even the best modern wards could be breached, but with old protections anchored in runes and centuries of magic, it was as safe as anything could be these days. James hadn't hesitated : using the Manor as a safe-house was what his parents would have wanted.

And if they refused to take risks, it would be the end of the Order of the Phoenix.

"If Lily trusts them,_ yes._"

* * *

Portkeys' magical signatures streaked across the distance they covered, making them easy to track by the Ministry, especially long-distance portkeys. Death Eaters could come sniffing around less than a minute after an arrival.

Of course, every Order member could follow portkey protocol in their sleep nowadays. Ten seconds after the time Lily had given him, the three and Barty Crouch apparated at Potter Manor.

Soon, Lily, James and Sirius found themselves alone in Dorea's small lounge, a sprawl of soft couches and enchanted tea-sets, twiddling their thumbs as 'the grownups' discussed in another room topics too sensitive for kids like them.

James' fingers were loosely entwined in Lily's, his leg against hers. His thumb caressed her wrist, feeling her heartbeat. After so many years of her being a fantasy, he still often marveled that she was happy to let him touch her.

Padfoot, as usual, couldn't stay put for more than a minute. Pacing, he shot a dirty look at the door. "Why does Remus get to be with the important people?"

"He alone talked to Anya before we arrived." Lily's lips thinned. "And it'll be easier to bully him into agreeing to another harebrained plan if he's alone."

"He should have insisted we come," James agreed.

"Eh, I get why he didn't protest. His furry little problem's suddenly an _advantage_. I'd be chuffed too."

James smiled at his best friend but his heart wasn't in it. "Lils was right. Sending Moony didn't get us any respect from the lycans. We can't afford more blunders like it."

Lily stood up with a frustrated sigh. "I bet Moody's legilimizing Crouch right now. I wish I'd known how to do it! We could have caught his co-conspirators."

Alone on the couch, James blinked and reached for his wand. _Tempus_. White magic looped together to make a clock._ 8.34 PM. _He pushed himself upright, suddenly eager to _move_. "You captured Crouch less than an hour and a half ago. What if his allies are still in the Balkans?"

Padfoot's eyes glittered as he caught on. "Incoming portkeys?"

"Well," James began, instinctively tightening his hold on his beautiful wife as she leaned back into him, "in the name of responsible parenting, we're going to need at least half a plan."

Lily tilted her head back to kiss his cheek. "Kipper," she called. She smiled when the elf appeared. "Tell the others I'm exhausted and my devoted husband is taking me home."

She put a hand on his hips and pushed herself out of his embrace, her hold tightening on his hand. "We don't have much time. We'll figure something out on the way."

_How was he supposed to be all responsible when _she_ demanded he follow her?_

* * *

It terrified Lily to see how easy it was to walk into the Ministry. They were glamoured to look like that heartthrob Quidditch star, Ludo Bagman, all three of them. It was brazen, but the few people still working in the building these days had grown expert at _not_ noticing.

"Old Elwick Fortescue deals with portkeys and _Portus_ monitoring," Sirius whispered, "this way."

The first time Lily had walked those corridors, she'd been thirteen. She'd convinced her Head of House to take her and other who wanted it, mostly muggleborn, on a Hogsmeade weekend. She'd been awed by the palatial architecture, the busy corridors and the magic that permeated everything. Today, only a few sad looking paper planes (_my bad_, _inter-departmental memos_) zoomed above her head. Before, magical lights had kept the interiors bright even at night. It should have been the spine of magical Britain, and instead gloom and oppressive silence seemed to have chased away all signs of life.

By the time they reached the Department of Magical Transportation, even Lily had noticed they were being followed. She took a slow breath, but of course the glance at James and Sirius just revealed serene-looking Ludo Bagmans. She had to remember that the real James and Sirius were two feet away from the illusions, invisible like she was. Combining a disillusionment spell with a projection when in dangerous territory was standard auror protocol. Unfortunately the projections had to be kept close to their casters. Even more unfortunately, she had to keep both hands free for safety reasons. _She knew James was close but-_

"Spies just report," The sudden feel of her husband's breath in her ear made her shiver. She smiled as his fingers brushed her lower back. "They won't attack us. They're not expecting to be hexed because they know people are terrified of You-Know-Who."

One of the Ludos turned to their follower, a long-haired middle-aged woman with a deep frown (_Death Eater sympathizer, blackmailed mother, or run-of-the-mill opportunist? An ally of the Order? _Lily hated not knowing). The witch's cream and purple robes weren't fancy and the cut was unusual, a little short, a little heavy on ruffles, for someone who'd want to convey status.

"Good evening." The witch sounded cautious, not hostile. "Anything I can do for you, Sirs?"

"Yes, please take us to Fortescue, Ms Piper. We have aurors incoming from Slovenia in half-an-hour with a criminal. We want to make sure their arrival goes well."

_What are you doing!_ Lily wanted to shout at James (because with the voice, it was obviously _James_.) Uncertainty frayed her nerves. All these gambles they had to make. _Ms Piper. _A Ministry regular then, a face the boys knew. It was one of the things Lily struggled the most with in this war : all those people, regular people, people she couldn't decently treat like Death Eaters and yet... _Who would Voldemort be without all the Ms Pipers?_

The witch had pointedly raised her eyebrows at the trio. "_Ludo Bagman_?"

"Times are hard, Ma'am," Sirius said with a roguish grin. Masquerading as a playboy Quidditch star fit him like a glove. "Giving you hardworking honest people something pretty to look at is the least we can do."

Piper laughed. Of course she did. Sirius was funny. Even at 9 PM in a semi-deserted Ministry with every eye reporting to a murderous Dark Lord, he was _funny_.

"I'll walk you there," Piper said.

Disillusioned, Lily was not laughing at all.

* * *

The gray-haired Elwick Fortescue dealt with portkeys and _Portus_ monitoring, in a large room filled with enchanted maps. Streaks of magic drew portions of the Isles in the air itself and flashes of light signaled movement. Rustling would follow the flashes as self-writing quills inscribed times and locations in a large tome, the latest of thousands. From the outside, the white-wood carved bookshelves looked like they could hold only a few dozen tomes, but, with the right command word, they would unfold to reveal a library of archives.

Fortescue's was a dead-end monotone desk job and the stooped wizard was clearly trying to be as unremarkable as the furniture, counting his days to a pension.

Fury bubbled in James' chest. _Look at all these people, normal people, people who no doubt hugged their kids and helped out their neighbors_.

_Incendio_, directed at this year's records burned his lips. Pointless, of course : Ministry tomes were enchanted against theft and destruction. But so much pain could have been avoided had the Ministry had taken collective action and locked everything up. Instead, Voldemort could use all its resources for his sick conquest. Of course, that kind of decision would have required a united Wizengamot, a Wizengamot willing to say _no_. Two dead among their numbers, another four violently threatened, and all those Lords and Ladies so used to being untouchable had forgotten their courage. Voldemort was no fool, he went straight for the generals.

Abilia Piper, like James suspected, was quick to warn someone. There was no question _who_ the message was getting back to. The Order couldn't ethically have spies like Piper nosing about, not with Death Eaters torturing and kidnapping at a whim. James hoped that what he'd said about aurors in Slovenia would make Death Eaters immediately summon back their own people.

He held his breath when less than ten minutes after Piper had left, a pale blue portkey-signal streaked across the shifting map. The enchanted quill over the open tome dipped itself in the inkwell and started writing.

_~~ Time : 20h58. _

_Activation : Slovenia. 46°22'55.8"N 14°13'01.2"E._

_Destination: Wales 52°51'08.8"N 4°43'23.4"W. _

_Passengers : two human mages._

_Portkey Class : G ~~_

"It says Porth Iago," Lily said, peering closely at the shimmering magical map. "It looks quite rural."

_Porth Iago? _James frowned. "Mr. Fortescue, isn't this the Quidditch pitch arrival zone ?"

The wizard boredly lifted his eyes. "Yes it is, Mr... Bagman. One of Games and Sports' portkeys, that's what 'class G' means."

James blanched. _Death Eaters were using the portkeys usually sold to fans before games?_ Any halfwit with a wand could use those : the arrival location was set, and they were code-word activated. But James could remember Dumbledore saying he'd been assured all those portkeys had been disenchanted. There was leak, a _big leak_, in Games and Sports.

James realized he was grinding his teeth when Lily leaned against his back. _Why was he even surprised? _He grasped her hand briefly, swallowing back a spike of panic that whispered _'what are you dragging your wife and kid into ?' _

_Two human mages. _With the element of surprise, they should be able to handle _two_.

"Let's go," he said firmly. He forced himself to take a calming breath. Moody had had them all attempt in-the-heat-of-battle-apparition, and _none_ of them had managed it without leaving a limb or two behind. James still remembered the crippling pain of losing three ribs and Moody's pitiless glare _"Anybody else still think apparition can be used for anything but full retreat?"_

Of course, Padfoot had _had_ to prove Moody wrong. And he had, with occlumency. Moody, predictably, had ridden his arse harder than all the other trainees combined for the next two weeks. Occlumency was, in theory, excellent for keeping one's head in a crisis, but in practice, repeated use encouraged one to avoid dealing with their emotions. Most ruthless murderers had been great occlumens.

"I'll cast an anti-apparition Jinx," Lily muttered as soon they'd apparated. Still disillusioned, they'd all dispelled their Ludo Bagman projections.

James squinted in the darkness. The portkey-zone was wide field of grass. Goals and stands would be set up before Games but tonight it was empty. Immediately, his attention was caught by twin light spells.

Fifteen yards away stood a tall and thin man, in his forties perhaps, and an plump blonde woman, a decade older at least. She stood tense, but not like an auror, or even like a person used to threat. The man, dark-haired with a goatee and a foreign look to him, held his wand like a duelist.

They had to move _fast_. Disillusioned, he nudged Padfoot who poked him back with two fingers. _The man first._

"Done," Lily whispered.

"Get the woman, Lils." He had to trust her. He had to _not _look out for her and focus on his target.

James counted to ten, waiting for the tell-tale flash of red. He didn't need to see Padfoot to know he was circling the wizard and about to cast a stunner. Anybody experienced walked around with a permanent shield of sorts : the first spell rarely struck. Wasting their first shot could cost them this fight.

James spun into action, his eyes locked on his target's arm, the second Sirius' stupefy harmlessly vanished against the man's robes.

_Brachis Ligneus !_

His back now to James, the man cried out as his wand arm morphed into a stiff wooden club. Sirius' blasting curse struck true, splintering it with a sickening cruch.

The woman screamed in shock. _Civilian. _Lily could handle her.

Grimly focused, James transfigured the grass into thick ropes. He swallowed a curse, scrambling into defensive mode, when the Death Eater became a blur of smoke and magic, his wand in his left hand. A hex cracked loudly on James' hastily raised shield.

Behind the dark wizard, Sirius cried out. It wasn't agony, but it wasn't good.

_Merlin, this guy was fast. Too fast. If anybody else apparated -_

"She's not marked!" Lily shouted.

James froze. That changed _everything_.

He waved his wand, muttering furiously. Earth shot out around the man, morphing into stone, trapping him into a impassable dome.

"Go!" James screamed at Padfoot. Not that he'd needed to. Padfoot had already grabbed on the disarmed witch. "The Lake."

_Silencio_, he cast by precaution on their new hostage as Lily dispelled the anti-apparition charm. The Dark Mark wasn't the only voice-activated spell.

He, Padfoot and the middle-aged witch vanished in side-along. _The Lake _was code for an old muggle Welsh pub that had been boarded up and sold to some constructions company. They had a lot of places like this, where they could be followed to by enemies without it mattering. An illusion fell over their robes, turning them into shirts and coats.

While Lily was making them muggle-friendly, James checked them all for tracer spells. He grinned breathlessly at Padfoot when the three of them came out clean.

Sirius had just finished fixing up his bleeding leg. "Stinger," he dismissed, with that cocky smirk of his. "Won't scar."

Fine. They were all _fine_.

James' arm wrapped around Lily's waist, he breathed in her hair, letting the scent slow his racing heartbeat, before turning to the silenced witch besides them.

His expression turned grim when he caught a tracker on the older woman. She was staring at them warily. From up close, she looked familiar, but James couldn't quite place her.

The tracker was powerful, woven tight like a noose and anchored to the woman's wand. Disheartened, James shot Sirius a hopeful glance. Sirius shook his head grimly. _Bugger_. James snapped the woman's wand, unable to contain his wince. Destroying wands was... _barbaric_. He straightened in triumph as he watched the tracker's power fade.

"_Finite Incantatem," _Padfoot muttered. He grinned as the strands of magic vanished. "Merlin, we're _brilliant_."

James' smile faded at their captive's pained but calm expression. He had a hunch she wasn't all that upset to have been caught, but to lose your _wand_... He clenched his own wand harder, the wood's gentle magical pulse now as familiar, and precious, as his own hand.

"We're done," he announced.

They apparated again.

* * *

After the customary security questions, Alice Longbottom welcomed them through the wards to her and Frank's cottage.

"I thought Frank was with you at Potter Manor."

"He is. Chatting with the grownups. We were sent to bed."

Alice side-eyed them, her lips twitching. "Come inside, Marauders."

"Mrs. Wilkes, we're going to talk," Padfoot said amiably.

Feeling much lighter, James bit his cheeks. Lily always made that cute stunned face when he and Sirius recognized people. But it's wasn't like wizarding Britain, especially well-off and well-connected wizarding Britain was all that big. Now that Sirius had said it, he did recognize Arsinoe Wilkes, Jasper's mom. The guy had been in their year, Slytherin, but a laid back, sociable type. He'd dated Anne, the Gryffindor seeker in sixth year, and his best friend was 'Claw. Most notably, Jasper's elder brother was a werewolf.

He pulled his wife out of Arsinoe Wilkes' hearing range. "What do you remember of Jasper, aside from the Anne thing?"

Lily frowned thoughtfully. "Very pro-werewolf rights. Didn't talk to muggleborn me, but no active disdain. He wasn't hostile to Severus either. Can't remember him being part of Mulciber's awful crowd." She sighed, her distress obvious. He instinctively stepped closer, his hand on her arm. "James, before today I'd have said mild-to-good things about Barty Crouch too. I just don't know."

Mrs. Wilkes was gesturing at her lips. Lily removed the silence.

The woman stared at them, hands on hips. "What were you _thinking_ attacking Karkaroff?" _Definitely a mum. _"He _trains_ them. Bellatrix Lestrange's the only one who beats him."

_Merlin_. The four shared subdued looks, Alice's lips were pinched in that way that betrayed she had a _lot_ to say. She was six years older than them, which seemed less now than it had once, but she still struggled to not behave like an over-protective big sister.

"Who's Karkaroff?" Padfoot said. "A British pureblood I don't know?"

"Immigrant. He's Slav. Talks the language. That's why he was part of this. As for me, they wanted someone unmarked to show the wolves it's not just about recruiting for the Dark Lord's guard, and because... My son Demetrius is a werewolf." She took a slow breath. "Get my youngest, Jasper. Get him here, get my husband here, and I'll talk."

"The rest of your family?"

"Lying low. I'm going to have to trust them to be good at it. There are a whole lot of Wilkes," she said with a ghost of a smile.

"If we do it, we do it now," Padfoot warned. "They're going to see us coming the second Karkaroff tells You-Know-Who we've got her."

"Do you have a house elf, Ma'am?" Lily asked.

Arsinoe chuckled, looking increasingly relaxed as she took the seat Alice offered her. "Do I look _that_ fancy?" She sobered. "There are no wards my men can't apparate out of around the house, but their wands are tracked the same way as mine was."

"I'll send Kipper," James said, pushing back the urge to grip _his_ wand once more. It was silly, he'd find another wand to bond with if it was snapped, but... "Write a message that'll make them come."

* * *

"Wilkes."

"Black," Jasper greeted with a curt nod. He inclined his head to Lily. From her narrowed eyes, he'd never bowed to her before. "_Potter_. Congratulations on the wedding."

"Glad I'm worth saluting now."

The blonde smiled faintly. "Now don't go looking for reasons to be annoyed at me." He warmly hugged his mother. "You alright, Ma?"

"I'm good. I've decided we're be better off hostages of people who didn't use unforgivables."

"Bloody cynical we've become." The light tone suddenly reminded James of Sirius, of the mask his best friend had once worn whenever he would speak of his rotten parents, pretending things didn't affect him.

"How did you all become roped in this?" He asked.

"Amanda's fault," Jasper muttered. "My big sister."

"My second child, Amanda, she's... she trained as a healer. She was outraged by some things that happened at Saint Mungo's. Ordinary things : corruption, inefficiency, favoritism... She publicly called out and embarrassed someone high up. They kicked her out. She was blacklisted. She soon after become friends with Bellatrix Black and she started working for Ladon Lestrange."

"Whoa, _Bellatrix_?" Lily exclaimed. "How do you go from righteous healer to-"

"It was '72. Things were different then. She was happy to be needed, perhaps too happy to pay attention to the early warning signs-"

Jasper shot his mother a defiant look. "They _did_ find Demi. My brother had been on the run since he'd been bitten and they brought him back to us. I don't think Bellatrix was a bad friend, not then."

Lily scoffed softly, but Padfoot didn't look so skeptical.

"Cousin Bella _had_ some good sides," the once-heir-to-the-House-of-Black allowed grimly. "She's out of control now."

"What did happen to Amanda ?" Alice said, sympathy radiating from her as she sat next to Arsinoe.

"She's... They've warped her way of thinking." The witch's eyes were bright. "They've obliviated her, you know, multiple times. You can tell: she's more forgetful, more docile. She's been using so much dark arts to heal... it's changed her. She doesn't care anymore, when it's _the other side_ that gets hurt. And Demetrius... It's either cooperating or the imperius and... Greyback's been giving him responsibilities. Demi's convinced himself this is necessary and right."

"Because of all the shitting people have been doing on werewolves," Jasper finished grimly.

"So you were sent to Slovenia along with Karkaroff because you have a werewolf child you love in Greyback's pack, you must be very familiar with werewolf legislation in Britain, and you can discuss werewolves without sounding embarrassingly out of touch," Lily summed up.

James smiled. His wife had a knack for keeping everyone focused.

"Yes. They're... The Dark Lord is..." Arsinoe stared down at the hands she kept clutched in her lap. "He... you can feel dark magic radiating from him, it is the most terrifying thing... But he is an intelligent man. I know the lycans weren't deaf to our arguments. We were offering them a way to help werewolves and..." Her jaw clenched, cold anger steadying her tone. "Had Bartemius Crouch treated purebloods like he's been treating werewolves, he would be in Azkaban. The lycans don't see him as one of the _good guys_."

No. It couldn't help to have the last bastion of Ministry defense led by a man whose hate for dark arts and dark creatures rivaled Walburga Black's loathing of everything muggle. Lily was giving James that look, the one that said _'this is something we'll have to deal with as soon as Voldemort's gone.'_

"Do you know where the people Greyback has bitten are?" Lily said. "The ones who aren't loyal to him? We must get them out of the country. Rok wants to see us act, and he can offer shelter."

"If you want to avoid the actual pack, I know of a house with almost exclusively new wolves. The families are under loose surveillance but otherwise left alone."

Padfoot clapped his hands together. "Guys, there's a good chance they'll have changed locations if we wait for tomorrow. Speed up."

The grandfather's clock chimed half-past-nine, but adrenaline had burned away James' tiredness.

* * *

Peter apparated with Julia Lupin. His face fell when he saw them all."I'm not sure I want to know guys. I make biscuits. I feed you. I'm good with that. Don't drag me into this stuff."

"Don't sell yourself short, Pete," James said, clapping the fourth Marauder on the back. Wormtail had never been the most adventurous of them, but these days he seemed unusually terrified. Then again, James and Sirius had been called _cocksure_ more times than they could count, so perhaps Peter was just _normal_. Still, James wished he'd cheer up. This was a _good_ day. "We convinced Edgar Bones to go with Lils to speak to the Slav lycans, and guess what : we _completely_ won them over."

His friend smiled weakly. "You're all braver than I am, Prongs. I'm serious. Don't tell me. I'm not powerful like you."

"Peter, your job is to go with Kipper back to Potter Manor and to tell them to join us. They'll hopefully come to assist instead of calling us names."

"Moody will prove he can do both simultaneously," Padfoot cracked.

Peter nodded, "I'll do it." He looked decidedly unhappy. _Come on, Wormtail!_

"Is everything clear for you, Kipper?"

"Yes, Master." The elf said, eyes tight in worry. "Please, don't be taking needless risks."

Julia squeezed James' shoulder after Kipper had popped away. "I know a couple of werewolves that can help us tonight if you promise to get their people out of the country."

Remus' mother, was a (registered) wolf animagus. She was a slender witch, with pulled-back light-brown hair and warm blue eyes. James would never forget that Hogsmeade day in third year : he, Sirius and Peter had met Mrs. Lupin, clueless about how to deal with the knowledge that their friend was actually a _werewolf,_ and the witch had revealed that animagi could hang out with werewolves safely. They'd never would have made it so fast without her help. Aside from Lily, Julia Lupin was the only person who knew the Marauders were unregistered animagi.

"Can any of these other werewolves fight?"

Julia's sad smile made him feel bad for asking. "Many don't even have a wand, James, not since the Ministry... Even some of those who do struggle with apparition. Don't save them expecting soldiers for the Order." Her smile was tight, her eyes pleading. "You'll have to do more than what werewolves, Britain's werewolves anyway, can pay back. I wish I.. I'm just an average witch, James."

"Hey, we'll help, I promise. Call your friends, any help is great."

Jasper Wilkes stepped up to him the moment Julia had left. "I'm coming," the Slytherin announced.

James frowned at the wand the wizard was holding. "We _broke_ your wand."

"You broke _great_-_grandfather's_ wand. I've been keeping my actual wand as back-up. I haven't been impressing anybody with my spell-crafting lately, but nobody got suspicious." He smirked at James' expression of approval. "I got into enough fights at Hogwarts to pick up a couple of tricks."

"What was it like, being the Slytherin who fights for werewolves?"

Jasper's sudden bright grin was awfully smug. "I won those fights, and I'm a nice guy, so _eccentric_ was the word thrown around. Most people aren't complete twits, they know about Demi. We might disagree on policy, but they don't get in my face about defending my own brother." His smile died. "Besides, you prejudiced tosser, you'd be surprised at the diversity of opinions in Slytherin."

"_Really_?" James said skeptically, mostly to rile the guy up. Still, there was a reason most Death Eaters were Slytherin : being told you were entitled to greatness and that it was something you were allowed to _take _wasn't the kind of thing that brought out the best in people. But Slytherin or not, Jasper's family was in danger. "You're not too worried about them? Amanda, Demetrius?"

Jasper's flat gaze made clear what he thought of _that_ question. "She's their best healer, they need her, and he's..." The man's shoulders slumped. "I can't keep doing _nothing_, Potter. I just can't."

That James could viscerally understand.

Lily interrupted them with an arm around James' waist. With her hair tickling his neck, he had to steal a kiss. Jasper gave him a pointed look but James just grinned. His _wife_. The others were just jealous.

"We're dividing into two groups," Lily said, a smile crinkling her eyes despite her worry. "While you save the werewolves, Alice and I will be rounding up the families and people Julia's been telling us about."

"Lils -"

"Darling, you're distracted when I'm around, and I can't focus if you're in danger next to me. Moody and the others are all the help you'll need, and I'll just be doing a whole lot of apparating."

_Just apparating_. Nothing was _just _these days. But James smiled despite the vise-like grip they had on each others' hands. She was right. She knew he was afraid, _she_ was afraid, but Merlin, they had to believe they were going to win. There just was no other way.

* * *

**One more chapter to go to wrap up this second "defiance". I'd love hear your thoughts^^. **


	6. Worth a Manor

Two long red-brick buildings with slanted moss-covered roofs greeted Jasper, James and Sirius as they appeared. The lack of windows, the rotting large wooden doors and the lack of neighboring constructs suggested an abandoned muggle farm, perhaps a granary.

The trio hurried closer. With a flick of his wand, Jasper led them through the wards. The illusion coating the buildings vanished, revealing a much less derelict place : the doors and roofs had been scrubbed and fixed and windows inserted in the sturdy walls. It still didn't look like much, but it was livable.

"He doesn't mark werewolves, " Jasper said. "Can't say if its because the spell doesn't mix with lycanthropy, or just politics. Many of the more influential Death Eaters would be more comfortable with Greyback dead, no matter how useful he is."

The Slytherin pointed his wand at the doors. A set of crude runes glowed purple. More purplish magic swirled in midair, taking the shape of a lock. Jasper conjured a key and inserted it inside the lock. The inner wards hummed as the key turned by itself. After a few seconds, lock and key vanished. They were in.

Without Jasper, it would have taken Sirius and James perhaps a half-hour to blast their way through. This was no safe-house, but the protections were enough to keep intruders out, alert of a breach, and prevent anti-apparition charms from being cast in the area. Death Eater had to care about little else than buying time for escape in case the place was compromised. The overgrown farm itself couldn't be of much value.

"Nobody around." Padfoot's satisfied smile did not quite reaching his eyes. He walked in a half-crouch, clutching his wand before him.

"Don't jinx it, man." But James was also relieved. Death Eaters had taken to using flats in inhabited muggle buildings, aware the Order would have scruples attacking a place where so many innocents resided.

As the got closer to the buildings, only Jasper walked on disillusioned.

A small short-haired woman in her fifties opened the largest building's door. Her thick robes had the rough look of clothes kept clean and mended with low-grade household charms. _No, these weren't people Voldemort cared much for._

"Little Wilkes," she said, betraying neither alarm nor joy. Dark bags hung under her eyes. "What news?"

"Good ones, Fenella."

Wrapped in sound and smell-muffling charms, James still held his breath as he and Sirius squeezed themselves inside the building, taking advantage of Jasper's deliberately slow movements.

The inside was one large single room. It was clean and warm, with that peculiar non-smell of air cleaned by magic instead of natural means. The furniture was obviously conjured. Some chairs were fading already and wouldn't last the night. Only the four sets of double-beds at the back of the brick building looked like they had been _made_.

Uneasy, James' eyes made an inventory of the people present. As mages went, this was abject poverty : nothing permanent, nothing solid. Some of the werewolves' robes shimmered under the magical lights, betraying illusions and glamours. Small vanities that no doubt concealed very poor quality clothes.

Still, he stayed alert. Seven werewolves, seven wands. Three were obviously teenagers, and James had to force himself not to stare longer, not to try to match their faces to the names of those who'd vanished in the middle of the Hogwarts school year. The fact they had wands, that they were warm and fed and _safe_, might still make loyal enough to the Lord Voldemort to fight back.

"You smell strongly of strangers," an accusing voice said. Jasper turned to face a wiry middle-aged man with the rugged air of a long-time werewolf. Yellow-teeth bared, the man stepped closer. Jasper wasn't the only one who stiffened as he moved. "What do you want, Wilkes?"

James wasn't surprised when Padfoot tapped two fingers against James' arm. James answered back in kind. _Him first._

"We've made contact with the Slav lycans, Lachlan, there's things you should hear."

James' attention was grabbed by a thickset dark-skinned woman in her eighties, by far the oldest in the room. He cast a detection spell and found no magic on her. Those jewels were real. Those thick rich-looking robes weren't glamoured.

They minutes, perhaps only seconds, before Moody and the others arrived. Everyone had to be disarmed and immobilized before that.

James tapped Sirius' arm again, this time with one finger, and silently transfigured all the robes in his line of sight in balls of ice. Throwing such a wide net was risky, as his power would divide among the various targets, but he was counting on the fact that unless proper precautions were taken, repeated charms use made objects less resistant to magic.

He had been right. Clothes and shoes became translucent ice. The drain of mass-transfiguration dispelled the disillusionment charm. Shouts and the clatter of furniture filled the room.

Two of the now half-naked werewolves had not had their wands in their robes. Lachlan's flew out of his hand as Sirius disarmed him. The other, one of teens, scrambled backwards, clutching it to her chest protectively. Huge gnarly scars split her upper thigh.

Teeth marks. They were _all_ scarred.

"Slide it in your underwear and you can keep it," James said, feeling a little wretched as the kid awkwardly obeyed, terror evident in her green eyes. A lighter green than Lily's, and more beaten down than his wife's eyes had ever been.

His face tight, James began casting the standard detection spells for tracers. He immediately regretted his promise to the girl. Again, trackers were bound to the wands. _Merlin_.

Next to him, Sirius and Jasper had finished binding everyone's wrists in conjured ropes. James summoned the wands out of the ice spheres to return the shivering werewolves their clothes. The robes split for a half-second and reassembled themselves to slip back onto their wrist-bound owners. Instead of the six expected wands, James found five.

"Where's your wand, Ma'am?" James said, frowning at the older woman. She wore a modest under-robe, but her hands were empty and well on display.

"I haven't been allowed one yet," she replied with a thin smile. "Now stop distressing everyone and state your business."

"James Potter," Jasper said with a faint smile as he made introductions, "Donna Shacklebolt."

_Shacklebolt_? James and Sirius shared a look. Was _this_ why Kingsley had resigned? Moody had been pissed to lose one of his best young instructors and James suspected the dark-skinned wizard had been on his radar as a potential Order recruit.

"We're getting you out of here, " James said quickly. "The Slavs agreed to help. You'll be safer. They'll help you be lycans, if that's what you want," strangled noises broke the silence. James struggled to keep fury out of his voice "and in any case, you'll be treated better than by any side here."

"Greyback's going to tear you all apart," Lachlan snarled, fighting against his bindings. "We're done believing your kind's promises. You think whisking us out of here makes you _heroic_? Do you have any idea -"

The wards suddenly screeched and buckled. It would have taken half-an-hour for James and Sirius to break the wards. Moody, Marlene and professional warden Dorcas Meadowes took seconds.

"Everything running smoothly, lads?"

Padfoot had been right, Moody looked ready spit them with a stick and roast them. Still, he wasted no time with them, scouring the room. He'd charmed his wooden leg silent and while it wasn't graceful, it didn't seem to hamper the veteran auror's speed.

"Is there a way to remove the trackers without breaking their wands?" James had to ask.

Dorcas took the bundle of wands. "Ah, " she said sympathetically. "Do we have twenty minutes, Alastor? _Donna_!"

Moody's stony composure cracked as he snapped towards the witch. James could see it, the moment it stopped being about werewolves and became about _people_. He clenched his jaw, because, _they were all people, damn it!_ Still, he felt for Moody, who carried more weight on his shoulders than almost any of them and did his damnedest to keep them all alive.

"Hello, Dorcas," Donna replied with a genuine smile. "The Lestrange boys cast those."

The witch nodded, eyes glinting. Dorcas had lost family, friends and her house to Death Eaters, but James had never seen her anything other than determined. "Ten minutes, then."

Padfoot grinned. "Awesome. If you don't mind sharing, how does knowing the caster help?" Unlike James, the sight of their scowling boss (and a professional warden old enough to be their gran, and another witch who could out-duel them both blindfolded) did not intimidate him in the least.

_Not that James felt guilty, only -_

"I know their wards," Dorcas answered tersely as she began to cast. "Old families always use the same tricks. Powerful spellcraft if you don't know the counter, but once you do know it..."

"Each of you," Moody suddenly barked, "I'm going to put a portkey around your neck. I activate one. I activate them all." The portkeys floated across the now silent room. Moody pointed his wand at the youngest werewolf, a boy that couldn't have been fourteen. He undid the ropes. "You, go grab whatever you lot want to take from this place."

"You're going to get us killed!" Lachlan spat, his face murderous. "You blundering -" his eyes widened as Moody displaced himself right in front of him in a cloud of gray smoke.

"_Legilimens_," Moody hissed.

After a few tense seconds, he broke the contact. "You bastards are lucky this place is an afterthought to You-Know-Who. We do have ten minutes."

"Not a single signal left the wards in the last two hours," Marlene confirmed. Her dark eyes crinkled slightly, but her mouth stayed hard. "Clean rescue, boys, assuming you're braced for the payback."

"We need to teach this lot how to celebrate," Padfoot grumbled. "Merlin's breath, they're dull."

James grinned while Jasper cracked a hesitant smile. "This is all a day's work for you, huh?" the Slytherin whispered.

"A good day," James said, throwing his arm around Padfoot's shoulder.

* * *

At the Longbottom's Frank greeted them with a glare and took Sirius and James aside. "Insubordinate hotheads," he muttered. "Alice has better come back in one piece."

"Brilliant." James corrected as the werewolves were escorted to the dining room. Lily still wasn't back. He hid his fear behind crossed arms and a cocky grin. "We're _brilliant_."

"Who's going to tell Big Daddy his son is a Death Eater?" Padfoot said.

"Why don't _you_ do it, since you love antagonizing people above you."

Padfoot rolled his eyes. "Sure, you cowards."

"We're not giving Junior back to the Dark Lord. We're giving him back to his father, to be tried."

"_What_," Sirius exclaimed. James was similarly shocked. _Moody had said-._ "You know marked Death Eaters don't stay locked up! Either we kill him, or we use him to save more lives than he can ruin!"

"You can't save more than he can ruin." Weariness slumped Frank's shoulders. "You can just decide the ones you save have more value."

James flinched, hearing the name that hung in the air. _Marisa Fenwick_. Voldemort himself had captured her after planting a polyjuiced decoy disguised as a six year old. Marisa... She'd been their best, except for Moody and Albus. They'd rescued her, but they'd been so late and the price... Nobody even knew if her mind would ever recover. It took all of James' Gryffindor bravery to not skive his weekly visits to her son. Benjy was just one year older than he was, wicked smart but never as scholarly as some other Ravenclaws, playing Keeper even into his OWLs and NEWTs years. Now he'd dived into healing magic with obsessive fervor (not that they'd stopped him: Benjy was good and getting better and the Order desperately needed healers).

A small warm hand grasped James'. He smiled instinctively.

"The lycans are full citizen in the Slav Federation," Lily said heatedly. She'd never had any scruples casting eavesdropping charms. "If we can score our first international alliance, it will change everything!" She jabbed a finger at Frank. "_But_ we've got to do our part! We've got to _use_ Barty, and you know it!"

Frank ducked out of answering by striding towards Alice.

"He knows you're right," James called after the older auror. He didn't imagine the smile tugging at Frank's lips. "So?" he added eagerly. Lily's happily flushed face meant good news.

Julia Lupin, Alice and Lily had gathered fourteen werewolves. Only four held wands. Soon, the families of the seven they'd rescued amounted to nineteen people. Even Lachlan stopped looking like they were hypocritical buffoons with no grasp of consequences when he saw his brother.

James' grin broadened when he realized Albus Dumbledore had joined them.

"Things started moving faster when he showed up," Lily admitted, eyes crinkling.

"Anybody else?" Moody said, his voice more level but his eyes still murderous. _Merlin, what did one have to do to make that man happy?_ He harrumphed. "Dorcas, Marlene, take the Wilkes home and check their wards." Moody never liked having too many people in one place.

"As soon as the ladies return, we'll raise temporary wards on one of the houses so we can give Rok an adress." Albus said, his serene smile the calming balm they all so desperately needed. His twinkling blue eyes met James' and he tipped his head.

James' chest filled with pride.

* * *

The next hour had James feeling increasingly giddy. This was it. They weren't in over their heads anymore. They had enough people, enough experience, to _succeed_. Padfoot pranced around like he was Moody himself instead of a junior trainee, but James wasn't much better.

_Take that, Voldemort. You can't just do what you want anymore._

A popping sound followed by flapping ears and panicked protuberent eyes killed all their smiles.

"Attack!" Kipper exclaimed. "The Manor is being invaded! Nincy being saving the portraits!"

"What?" Padfoot roared. "How many, _who_?"

"Many! The curly witch being there. And _him_."

_Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort._

James stood frozen. _It had been too easy. _Death Eaters had no honor : they never met you front on, no. They held back, let you think you'd won, and struck on _their_ terms.

"Come on, aurors, to the Manor!" Moody, cursing, and Dumbledore, silently grim, disapparated.

"Wait!" James cried as Sirius, Frank and Marlene took out their wands. "Kipper what about the Prewetts?" Fabian and Gideon had stayed behind to keep an eye on Crouch.

"They being taken. Kipper cannot being going too close or Kipper will be dead."

The room was silent as a grave. Blood pounded in James' ears.

"I'll send Kipper if I need anybody aside from Moody and Dumbledore," he said hoarsely. "It could be a trap."

"We can't let the house-"

James' jaw clenched at Padfoot's furious disbelief. "Stay here! This place is harder to defend!" Not that the Longbottoms' wards were shoddy, only recent.

His scowling best friend grabbed his arm. "You're not apparating in hostile ground alone," he growled. "_Never_ alone, you tosser."

James took a slow breath. It wasn't a good sign when _Padfoot_ was the careful one.

"Marlene, I think nobody here will mind you double checking everyone for trackers or the like," Lily said, with that flat calm voice she had when she was most certainly _not_ calm. "The attack's timing is too good."

She met James' eyes, her tight nod a grudging permission. Together, he and Sirius apparated alongside the younger Potter elf at the edge of Potter Manor's grassy grounds.

* * *

A dark mass of something, a _buzzing_ something, was eating at the roof. Thick wooden beams cracked and fell to the ground with heavy _thunks_. One of the walls seemed melted, consumed by slow-moving sickly blueish ooze. The stone ground-floor terrace was cracked open, the flower beds upturned, as if torn apart by a dozen tiny earthquakes.

James' eyes burned at the sight.

Dumbledore and Moody held back behind the small stream that marked the border of Potter land. "What's everyone waiting for?" Moody growled. "We're compromised: they walked right through the wards!"

"It's salvageable still," Dumbledore said sofly, eyes narrowed as he wordlessly moved his wand. "Century-old manors do not surrender so easily."

_Walked through the wards. A traitor was among them. _But because the Death Eaters had _opened_ the wards, those were still intact. Their magic sought James, _Lord Potter_, and instantly told him there were thirteen people inside. For eight of them, the manor could identify the lineages: Lestrange, Travers, Flint, Crouch and, to James' great relief, Prewett. Ancient families who'd walked these halls as guests often enough for their bloodlines ring familiar.

"The twins are alive. Three Lestranges. Let's see what I can _see_."

James muttered spells passed down the Potter generations : a magical window appeared before them, revealing the reflections of every mirror in the house. Some were already cracked, useless. Fires ate at curtains and furniture, and someone had taken great pleasure in blasting his ancestors' collections apart. The writhing mass now invading the topmost floor from the roof and attic was a cloud of impossibly large, impossibly toothy, flying termites. Dark conjurations: Voldemort's weapon of choice.

Willing himself impassive to the destruction of his childhood home, James searched for movement.

He thought he recognized the Slav, Igor Karkaroff, among the masked Death Eaters, half-carrying a dazed-looking Barty Crouch. His breath caught when he spotted Voldemort. The Dark Lord froze and turned, as if he'd felt James' spell. His red eyes burned.

"Come, Potter, your ancestors' home needs you."

Twin snakes were wrapped around Voldemort's arm, stiffly, as if frozen with a body bind. _Twin-_ _Merlin._ James forced a breath in his lungs._ Fabian and Gideon are alive, that's what matters. _

"Is Cousin Sirius there too?" Bellatrix waltzed into sight, her dark eyes glinting. Like Voldemort, she didn't bother to hide her face. "Did Dumbles tell you about traitor Baby Reggie? Pity he didn't think to flee to his big brother."

_What?_ "Regulus is at Hogwarts," Padfoot snapped.

Voldemort's pale skin cracked into a sinister sneer. "Black," he tutted. "I marked Regulus years ago. Such a disappointing coward he turned out to be. His body has been cold for weeks."

_"What_?" Sirius exclaimed, turning to Dumbledore.

"Get away!" Moody snarled, yanking Padfoot out of sight of the manor's reflected mirrors "He's made them two-way."

Sirius shoved the older auror off him. "What's this about Regulus?"

Sirius winced when Moody slapped the back of his head. "_Later," _he hissed, trapping the mirror-spell in a bubble of silence. Bellatrix's vicious grin turned into a sneer when she realized she wasn't being heard anymore."There's enough left of the wards to block their exit, we must-"

_At what cost?_ "Can you get the twins out?"

Worse than Moody's sudden scowl was Albus Dumbledore's pallor.

James' chest tightened as he realized what he had to do. _Dad, I hope you would have approved. _He began chanting words his father had taught him and that he'd never thought he'd say.

_Invaders. The manor is lost._ _Do not let them leave. Protect the family and its guests._

It was like a rumbling you couldn't quite hear, like a chill or perhaps a tickle. It was all around them, and to James, like finally meeting a long-lost family member: foreign yet instantly familiar.

A manor's magic was layers upon layers, cast for comfort, for protection, but also for war. Potter Manor especially had been erected long before the Statute of Secrecy, when Dark Arts had still just been called _magic_ and when many of the old blood families had looked upon the rich merchants building their own great house with hate, all too eager to teach them a lesson.

"What are you doing!"

"Not playing by their rules. They came for us, not the destroy manor. It's bad practice when you preach pureblood superiority." A ghost of a smile quirked James' lips. "Do you think any of the unmarked old blood manor-owners will believe them if they say they didn't _mean_ to?" Too many still thought they could stay on Voldermort's _good_ side.

Sirius' face fell as he caught on. He'd lived in Potter Manor for only two years, yet it was the place he meant when he said _home_. He grabbed James' arm painfully tight. "Get them out, Prongs, it's worth it if you get them out alive."

Fabian and Gideon were guests, the house turned against the others. Every enchantment, from the dusting charms to the inventory runes in the pantry, unraveled, sacrificing themselves to power the wards. To destroy the invaders.

"Shield us, Boss," James urged. Not that Moody had waited to be told.

A deafening blast of air and dust slammed against the sphere of protective magic around them.

Behind the mirrors, Lord Voldemort whirred in shock as the ceiling collapsed over him and Bellatrix. The large blocks of wood, stone and brick were covered by a sheen of burning magic. Rodolphus Lestrange fell, his chest sliced open by an animated curtain now hard as steel. A summons yanked to his wife by a summons. Soundlessly cursing, Bellatrix grabbed him and apparated out, immediately followed by Karkaroff and Barty Crouch. James flinched at the sight of Barty's splinched foot.

"They shouldn't even be able to apparate out," Sirius said darkly.

Eyes narrowed in hate, Voldemort gave up his counter-spell in seconds. Five masked figures had apparated to him in a cloud of dark smoke and were failing to apparate out, betraying increasing panic. It was only then that the self-titled Lord realized the snakes were gone from his arms. By incapacitating them completely, he had made it easy for the wards to treat the twins like objects and so now they rested, still transfigured, on the bed of the master bedroom, the only one still intact.

But not for long. The very walls shivered and cracked from magical strain. "Kipper, apparate Fabian and Gideon back here."

Voldemort had grabbed his Death Eater's robes and froze, unmoving. After a tense pause, he released three of them. Still, he didn't move. The Death Eater's shield spells buckled under the assault of murder-bent furniture. For the first time in James' memory, those nightmarish red eyes betrayed fear.

"He really thinks he had more than a second to get out?" There was a hysterical edge to Sirius' voice, equal hilarity and viciousness. "He thinks he's a match for _centuries_ of wards? He's going to have to let Travers and that bastard Rabastan go too. Fingers crossed his Dark Mark won't be enough to let _him_ out."

"Must be awkward to realize you're the expendable ones," James muttered as the three Death Eaters Voldemort had let go of struggled to keep their balance, and their limbs, under the collapsing manor's assault. There was no need of sound to realize they were screaming as they tried to flee.

_Flint_. And two of lineage mixed or unknown. James let the mirror-spell dissolve everywhere Voldemort wasn't, not particularly eager to see people, even Death Eaters, die. It was _justice_, he grimly told himself. By law, they would have been sentenced to death from the Dementor's kiss.

Something large and red suddenly flashed near Voldemort. Something that... flew? Dust and debris had made everything behind the mirror-spell blurred shadows. It looked like _Bellatrix_ was back by her master's side. _It couldn't be._

James stared in disbelief as they dying wards told him there was no one alive left in the manor.

"Oh, Tom, you never did know your limits," Dumbledore said, an odd, dangerous light in his eyes.

Something told James Dumbledore knew exactly how Voldemort and his three Death Eaters had managed to disappear. But he couldn't ask : the Headmaster was gone.

And before James now stood ruins: half-walls and piled up debris. Everything that had been home for so long, every memento from journeys made generations before. _Erasmus' life work._ _Merlin, what would he tell the portrait? _James' eyes burned.

"Hex yourselves with something impressive," Padfoot abruptly said. "You don't even have a scratch on you, it's embarassing."

James turned and realized Moody had fixed up the twins. The redheads looked dazed and a little yellow, but they'd already been yellow this morning. They'd need a couple more days to recover fully from those poisonous potion fumes Death Eaters had attacked Hogsmeade with last week (nobody had died, Fabian and Gideon deserved a medal for quick reflexes).

"Will you sack us, boss?"

"_I_ would sack us."

Their tones were light, their smiles reassuring, and James had to grin. The two men had a knack for lifting people's spirits, even when times were rough.

"We've got a leak," Moody said gruffly. "One the seventy or so people who knew we'd be busy with the werewolves _talked_." James stiffened at the _seventy or so_ jibe. "Whoever it is, Potter, they knew your wards or led him to someone who did. We need to tighten things up. Now _move_, before the Lestranges double back to ambush us."

* * *

Despite the late hour, James had volunteered to try to track down whoever their 'leak' was, but Moody had locked them up in the Longbottoms' guest room and told them to sleep the day's emotions off. James would have liked to think Moody had made that call because James _was_ upset and exhausted, but he suspected that Moody was mad at them for not having been more careful.

He really hated being treated like a blundering kid. He hated thinking_ where did I mess up?_ even more.

"James, I... I'm _so_ sorry."

James was getting fed up with the pitying glances. Lily and Moony looked like they were expecting him to cry and Padfoot looked like _he_ was going to cry. "It was half a ruin already," he snapped.

Lily's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

It had been a shock for James to learn upon graduating that the Potter fortune was only a few tens of thousand galleons strong, hefty savings for a working wizard, but not enough for a life in luxury. Worse, Father had left him his journals in his will, revealing that Potter Manor was crumbling.

Maintaining manors had never been about replacing materials: with magic, that was child's play. But anything new had to be integrated into the complex ecosystem of runes and enchantments of the domain. Every family had books full of spells defining what had been used and when. Such books were secret, often in code and never copied. The problem with close-guarded secrets is that they're too often lost.

But that was not the most common problem : the spells the books held had often been cast by the most powerful family members, eager to outperform their ancestors. Few of those mages had anticipated that, a century or two later, their more average descendants would take one look at the spells and realize they'd have to share their family secrets with at least two blood relatives to hope to match such crafting. Some families were close knit enough for it to work, but many heirs preferred to keep the family property to themselves rather than share their inheritance with more talented relatives. All too often, they would simply hope their own children would be up to the task.

Some expert mages made a career of figuring out building enchantments to tell their owners exactly what was where and what to do. It could nevertheless take years to restore a manor that was in a bad way and the costs were astronomical. Perhaps the reason mages so easily stayed in denial about their crumbling houses was that, until the strain from the enchantments grew too strong, the manors looked _perfect_.

Charlus Potter had admitted shortly before his death that he'd so readily volunteered to upgrade the wards at Godric's Hollow because he had never intended for James to make his life at the Manor. Past the first shock, James' respect for his parents and grandparents had soared. He appreciated that they'd preferred to use their money to support political endeavors such as the Squib Marches, rather than pour it all in a twenty-room 14th century home. Nevertheless, he struggled to let go of the anger.

_Why coddle him like that? _No doubt his doting parents had been afraid to upset him. And James _would_ have been upset, but so what? At least he'd have known his parents better before they'd died. There had been no portraits of Charlus and Dorea, as tradition dictated they be made when one became grandparent, or for one's one hundredth birthday.

"Merlin's balls, Prongs," Sirius exclaimed, "how long have you been bottling that up?"

"Had to digest it. The point is, home's at Godric's Hollow. The Manor only existed because my many time great-greats were the kind to flaunt it." His shoulders slumped as he turned to his wife. Lily looked... sad. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier."

"Relax, I didn't marry you for your money_." _Still, Lily grimaced. "Those two thousand galleons I spent on potions ingredients..."

"It's war. You'll get an awesome job once this is over and Padfoot and I will be Moody's most decorated auror Captains. "

"Kicked out for insubordination that's what's going to happen to us," Padfoot said, his expression suddenly dark. "Guys, I need you to talk me out of shouting at Dumbledore."

James didn't have to guess. "Regulus?"

"Years. Red-Eyes said _years_. How the fuck was my brother marked while _at Hogwarts_ and nobody noticed? He vanished _weeks_ ago and nobody tells me anything?"

"The not telling could be to protect you," Moony pointed out. "It's not safe for you to go knocking at your mother's house and ask."

"Okay," Padfoot allowed. "I'll forgive not telling me. But y_ears_. _At Hogwarts. _I thought my idiot brother _wanted_ to become a Death Eater not that he already-" Sirius shut his eyes. "Prongs, I can't do this. I'm going to say something that I'll regret."

Yeah... _So what? _It's not like Sirius risked _harming_ Albus Dumbledore and no doubt _some_ shouting was warranted. Regulus had been a prick, but- _Traitor_. Bellatrix had said _traitor_. Voldemort had called him a coward. Regulus had been just seventeen, perhaps if someone had paid more attention-

"Let's go to Hogwarts." Lily decided. She yawned, reminding them it was well past 11 PM. "Let's. Let's sleep there like old times and tomorrow, we check all the students, every house, no exceptions, for marks or tracers or the like. Maybe we'll get answers, maybe someone will know something."

"I'll go track down my Head Boy's badge," James said with forced cheer.

Sirius' grim smile showed he appreciated the effort. "Damn it, Reggie," he muttered. "What did you do?"

* * *

They found two by the end of their first day of investigations. A sixth year Slytherin, and a seventh year Ravenclaw.

From the Ravenclaw, Iselda Greengrass, James learned that Grace Macmillan had been one of those who'd died at Potter Manor. Bad news : either the woman, an excellent dueler, was under the imperius curse, or the neutral families were growing increasingly not-neutral. Veritaserum had Greengrass admit that she was convinced that the Dark Lord would win. She had only scathing things to say about the ability of any of the Dark Lord's opponents and was disillusioned about Dumbledore managing much more than gain some time until he too was killed.

The Slytherin, Neleus Carrow, was of those dangerous fools that seemed to make the bulk of Voldemort's third-tier Death Eaters. He was convinced he'd been marked so young because the Dark Lord recognized his family's worthiness, and his own value above that of his older siblings. He planned to use the war to circumvent the fact he was third-born. Like Greengrass, he knew little of import and dutifully sent gossip to Rodolphus Lestrange. When Sirius demanded answers about Regulus, Carrow seemed genuinely shocked. Apparently Regulus had been high up, Lestrange's protegé. Carrow had no clue _why_ Sirius' brother was dead and stared blankly when James said he'd been called a traitor.

Just after the interrogation, both students forgot all about having been found out.

"Let's give them something," Padfoot said, an undercurrent of rage still stiffening his jaw. "Let's pretend say, that this guy overheard Prof. McG say something _interesting_."

In her office, Minerva McGonagall let them make their case. Unlike their Hogwarts days, she sat next to her desk rather than behind it, as if to acknowledge they'd outgrown her authority. _As if they actually had, _James thought fondly. He still struggled to call her by her given name.

"I do agree it could work. It should be outside of Hogwarts, and I will skip one of my own classes. It should suffice to convince our enemies that it is a matter of utter importance."

James blinked as he realized she meant to do much more than let a student report back on an eavesdropped conversation between teachers. "Why would you put yourself in such danger?"

"The pleasure of hexing some of my more unpleasant former students," She deadpanned. James bit back a smile, increasingly appreciative of her dry humor. Minerva's lips thinned. "Mr. Black and I talked briefly before he vanished."

"What, Regulus?" Sirius exclaimed. "What did he say?"

"He said we should have paid more attention. He sounded terrified. He was gone the next day. I... I'm sorry I didn't -." Her eyes were bright as she met Sirius' gaze. "We should have taken the time to monitor the students more closely. I-."

"The idiot's dead now," Sirius cut in stonily. "And if he was an active Death Eater, he was worse than an _idiot. _Let's focus on what we _can_ do."

Padfoot was _not_ alright. He'd hated his little brother, but he was not alright at all. But James had no idea what to say, so he just nodded along.

"We _could_ pay Bartemius Crouch a visit." It was still late afternoon. "You did say you'd tell him about Barty."

"Moody hasn't bothered to yet?"

"Identifying who betrayed us, willingly or unwillingly, is more urgent." Minerva's lips twitched. "Do tell Crouch, Moody will thank you for it. Those two men argue enough as it is."

"The boss doesn't thank anybody for anything," Padfoot grumbled. He blushed slightly at his former teacher's pointed gaze.

* * *

Mrs. Crouch was the one who greeted them and led them to an empty room in the Ministry's most heavily warded area. She was a slight, elegant witch with a soft, almost subdued voice.

"Bartemius is so busy, so I try to help him where I can," she said with a slight, exhausted smile. "As you said it's about Barty, I thought it would be better. Their relationship is... strained."

"Can't imagine why," Sirius muttered as Mrs. Crouch summoned a tea-set towards them.

Not that either of them were upset to be dealing with her rather than her often bad-tempered husband.

Mrs. Crouch grew paler and paler as they spoke, her hands shaking. James felt wretched. It was obvious she loved her son.

"No, he- he must be-." An odd light entered her eyes. "Who else knows?"

"Moody, Dumbledore... we didn't broadcast it, but about a dozen people for now."

"You know them all?"

"Sure, but what-"

He wasn't sure who moved first, but he and Sirius realized at the same time their wands were gone. Not that they had been keeping them close, here of all places. Sirius slumped, struck by a wordless stunner.

"_Imperio_!"

Suddenly, James' surroundings stopped mattering.

"Morgana," the voice whispered. "It works. It really works..." The voice was _important_. James stood still, waiting.

"I'm going to teach you a spell. It locks out a fact. It makes you not think of it, you don't mention it. You never quite forget but it becomes utterly irrelevant. I like it because it _stays_ irrelevant even if somebody brings it up to you. Repeat after me : _Dedisco_. Everyone will be safer this way."

James repeated. He wanted to please the voice. _Mrs. Crouch._ He had no reason not to. He couldn't remember ever having felt so calm, so content. No more fear. No more grief. Just the voice.

"Tell me who knows that Barty is a Death Eater."

Of course he told her. "Moody, Dumbledore, Edgar Bones, Anya, Rok, Igor Karkaroff, Vol-"

"Those who are not Death Eaters," the voice hastily said. "_Tell me_," she urged as he stayed silent.

He wanted to. For some reason, he _couldn't. _"I can't tell you the rest."

"Why?"

Now that she _asked_, the reason became obvious. "I am bound to secrecy to protect the identity of those who fight for Albus Dumbledore."

"Of course, it's sensible... But you know who knows and nothing stops you from hexing them?"

"Yes. No."

Mrs. Crouch's voice shook. "Then you will make everyone aside from Albus Dumbledore and the Death Eaters on that list forget that my son was the Death Eater. You will first hex those who are least likely to notice their memory was modified, and act as quickly as you can without arousing suspicion. Tell me, if I wanted to get Dumbledore hit with the spell or something similar, how would I do it without him noticing?"

James frowned. His mind felt a little sluggish, but he knew she needed that answer. "I... well, we've come to realize house-elves are underestimated..."

"Oh, oh that's clever. I'll take care of it."

The rest of the afternoon and the evening pass in a blur. _Act as quickly as possible without otherwise behaving out of character_

Sirius, Remus, Lily, Minerva, Alice, Frank, Gideon, Fabian, Minerva, Edgar Bones, Dorcas, Marlene, Moody.

It's not that James wasn't _there_: he smiled and tensed up at the right moments, and if it wasn't quite right, the others dismissed it as grief over the manor. Inwardly, he felt detached, focused on making sure he obeyed the voice. When he had the opportunity to hex Lily, he hesitated. '_Everyone will be safer this way,_' echoed in his mind, pushing everything else away.

_Dedisco_, he cast wordlessly.

He found an excuse to visit them all. He thanked Edgar for accompanying his wife with a bottle of fine wine. He pointed out that Dorcas should urgently look at what remained of the Potter wards because the traitor could have been fool enough to open them themselves. He sent Kipper to Moody at 10 PM, saying he wanted to clear the air. He signed it _Contrite Insubordinate. _It made Lily laugh.

When he cast _Dedisco_ at Moody's back, James suddenly forgot _what_ specific memory he had been locking away with the memory curse.

The auror spun impossibly fast despite his wooden leg, his thick fingers grabbing James' wrist. "Did you just hex me?"

"I... A prank." James grinned easily despite feeling somewhat at a loss. The voice hadn't said what to do if he was caught. '_Without otherwise behaving out of character.' _But what reason could he have to hex Moody? "You'll soon see, boss, you should find it fun."

Moody wrestled James' wand out of his hand. "_Priory Incantatem_."

_'Without otherwise behaving out of character.' _James had done it. He had cast the spells. If Moody wanted to check his wand, James was duty bound to let him.

The dozen _Dedisco_ poured out amidst the rest of the day's spells. It didn't take long for Moody to realize James was under the imperius.

James gasped as the whole of his mind was his once more. He swayed, his heart racing. "What -, why-... I" He shut his eyes, willing things to make _sense_. He couldn't seem to hold down a thought, like a migraine without the pain. "You should legilimize me, boss, I'm all over the place."

"I will if you tell me someone's about to get killed. Otherwise, it's not worth the harm I could do to you. The imperius makes the mind too fragile. Tell me what you remember."

"I spent the day until five or so at Hogwarts, then Sirius and I went to see Mr. Crouch. I saw Mrs. Crouch. I told her about the manor being destroyed. I said we made contact with the Slavs without saying it was lycans, or anything about werewolves. That's when things start being really foggy."

"Your second apparition of the day was as you left the Ministry?"

"Yes." That he was sure of despite the cotton in his brain.

"Then you hexed someone, no doubt Black, before you left," Moody said, finally handing back James' wand to him. "You must have been ambushed at the Ministry, or taken somewhere from the Ministry. Who did you see right after the Ministry?"

"We went straight back to Hogwarts. I don't remember anything from the Ministry except seeing Mrs. Crouch," James said, panic making his voice a whisper. _Who had hexed him? What had he made people forget? _

"You wouldn't. The imperius shields its caster, unless explicitly made not to. It affects your memory, not just your will... I'll go speak to Mrs. Crouch." Moody looked grim but not angry, and he always looked angry when he felt they could have avoided a mess up. For some reason, it made James feel even smaller.

"Boss, why couldn't I shake it off?"

The auror suddenly looked older than his years. "Because deep down, lad, you're a trusting sort. Those who resist the imperius curse on the first attempt tend to have a massive authority issues. Usually because their upbringing was a nightmare. Shame whoever got you didn't try it on Black instead."

Moody's words should have helped, yet crushing guilt twisted James' guts."I'm so sorry, I- I'll say if I remember anything."

But none of them, not even Moody, ever suspected Crouch's soft-spoken wife. After all she had no Death Eater sympathies and stood staunchly by her husband. In the end, Voldemort wasn't the only one who underestimated the lengths a mother would go for her son. Unfortunately, Igor Karkaroff's trial erased Barty Jr.'s hope of escaping the war unscathed.

* * *

The following days were frantic. Everyone knew Voldemort would strike hard and soon.

James had been given time off. After two nights, he'd finally woken up feeling like himself, mentally, but emotionally... He'd hexed _Lily_. _How could any spell make him hex his wife? _He wished he could better remember being under the curse,_ then perhaps he could-_

James and Lily stood in each other's arms in Harry's room, right now filled to the brim with sleeping portraits. It shouldn't be so hard, yet James had no idea what to do with any of them.

"We've gotten forty-seven people out of the country," Lily whispered.

"Worth a manor."

His wife leaned into his chest. "I didn't say that."

"No, _I_ said it. We're not fighting this war for _places_." They all acted like he was insane and had willingly sacrificed his newborn. He was so fed up.

Lily abruptly smiled. The sight snuffed James's anger. "James, I am _proud _of you. Those pure bloods, even the _Order, _can't wrap their minds around giving up a manor. You, not the Order, _you__,_ James Potter, saved the Prewett twins and won the day for us. _You _foiled Mr. Mort, by doing something he never expected."

James was grinning stupidly as she kissed him. Something about Lily had always made him feel invincible. Once an invincible arrogant showoff who struggled with boundaries, but Lily had been able to see past that, and he vowed, as he often did, never to disappoint her again.

Unfortunately the reason they were in this room didn't let the moment last.

"Let's just start with your favorite portrait. Or your least favorite, then you won't care if it shouts at you."

"I kind of like them all," James muttered unhelpfully.

They started when the wards alerted them of someone in the guest threshold. Nobody could apparate directly in the house anymore except for James and Lily.

Moody's expression made James' heart drop. The auror had rarely looked so weary.

"Who knew Edgard Bones was part of the diplomatic detail? Who exactly did you tell?"

James looked down. He'd - "I can't remember. I told... I guess I told..."

"You boasted like you were still at Hogwarts, you fool. Damn it, Potter, I don't ride you because I don't want to win this war! You _cannot_ keep blabbing!"

"Can I offer you a drink, Sir?" Lily cut in with stiff politeness. She would have ripped the head off of anyone else for talking to James that way. James squeezed her hand, thankful for her support as much as for her restraint.

"Your strongest coffee, please," Moody decided, bowing his head at Lily in a belated greeting despite his gruff tone. He abruptly clapped James on the shoulders and pulled himself a chair. "We did more for werewolves than we have in a decade, lad, and we got three Death Eaters. That's on you. Stand tall on that."

_Cut out the moping, Potter,_ his pitiless gaze said, but James _did_ stand taller. "Thanks for saying that, Boss."

"We also know there's a leak. That's valuable."

But the older man's face had darkened again, and that wasn't Moody brooding, that was something _raw_.

"What happened?" Lily said, her voice shaking as she clutched the coffeepot she'd just summoned.

"Susan Bones." Edgar's wife. Lily sucked in a breath. "She got a message, cheerful, from her husband, to meet him in front of his aunt's house. They struck before she could apparate. They could've cast a killing curse but no -" Moody slammed his fist on the table. "They _left her _there. Amelia did what she could, Albus showed up and left... She'll be dead in minutes if she isn't already, the fetus too. They wanted us to stand helplessly by as she died." He slowly breathed in, eyes far away. "We've moved the Bones."

James was glad he had been sitting. He had no words. The Bones had never been targeted before. Once James would have cursed and raged, now... it couldn't be a good sign , this shocked numbness, this hollow feeling of... of '_not again.'_

"What will I say to Edgar?" Lily finally muttered, her green eyes wide in horror. "I _asked_ him to come, I- Perhaps a letter... What do I write, James? What would you want to be told if -"

James knew his sudden grip on his wife's hand was painful. He couldn't help it. "Don't. Don't even think it."

"What can we do?" Lily breathed.

"Nothing. I didn't have to tell you immediately. I just needed an excuse to get away." Moody's eyes narrowed. "Tell anybody, this child will be your last."

James stared, not sure he'd heard right.

Moody barked at humorless laugh. "You've been beating yourself up over the imperius haven't you? Well, time you realize we're all fallible. We all need breathers. An auror who doesn't know when to stop is a menace." Moody's earnest expression made him look unusually... fond. "I might yet promote you. I need you to grow up fast, lad."

And so James got to see Moody _weak_? James sighed. Not _weak_, human. And that was the point. They needed wisdom more than pride these days.

"What's Black up to?" Moody said, reaching out for the biscuit plate.

"His fixing up a motorcycle at the Tonkses," James admitted after a pause, still rattled by his seemingly indestructible mentor's admission. "It's a flying war machine. You might want to check it out, Sir."

"The smokescreen enchantments are clever." Lily tapped three cups with her wand. The coffeepot levitated to fill them up with steaming coffee. "But I'm still not convinced breathing fire out of the exhaust pipes isn't more dangerous to him than to enemies."

Moody raised his eyebrows. "Black's got a flying fire-breathing motorcycle?" He huffed a laugh. "'Course he has. Doesn't suffer from a lack of guts, that one. Pain in my arse."

James grinned as he sipped his coffee. He grimaced at the bitter taste. Their _strongest_ alright. "I daresay Sirius is a fine bloke considering where he's from."

"Fair enough. I'll tell him he's my favorite Black."

Moody's chair clattered backwards when a flash of fire filled the living-room. His petrifying hex shot forward before James had finished pulling out his wand. The hex seemed to dissolve in thin air.

"There you are, Alastor. Ah, sorry for the scare."

James gaped in wonder. Albus Dumbledore, with a... a _phoenix_ perched on his shoulder. The fiery bird took off to settle on the back of one of the wooden chairs, its long tail feathers almost brushing the seat.

"The baby will live," Albus said softly, "she's sturdy for seven months. Edgar's naming her after her mother." He turned to the phoenix. "This one agreed he owed me a debt." His expression darkened. "It was too late for Susan, her heart was still pumping but the life had gone out of her. Even phoenix tears cannot cure everything. But young Susan, she should be fine."

"Albus," Moody said slowly, and for once he had been as speechless as the rest of them. "You mean to say it was this phoenix who apparated You-Know-Who out of Potter Manor?"

The bearded wizard nodded. "It takes a special kind of arrogance to think one can enslave a wild phoenix. From what I could understand it is his tail-feather that powers Tom's wand. Tom used it as a summoning anchor."

"I could summon a phoenix?" Lily said, now staring at her own wand in wonder.

"No, _you_ couldn't," Dumbledore said gently, his blue eyes crinkling.

"Shame, I'd treat them royally, I promise," she told the majestic bird. "I'm very glad Professor Dumbledore rescued you."

Wings half-spread, the phoenix extended its neck and let out a trill. The sound slid down James' throat like honeyed tea, suddenly he felt alert, and better than he had in days. The four shared awestruck smiles as the bird vanished in a new whirlwind of heat-less flames.

"You've got to befriend him, Professor," Lily said. "The _Order of the Phoenix_ would take a whole new meaning."

"Oh he's very angry at Tom." Dumbledore's wistful tone betrayed he was just as charmed by the phoenix as the rest of them. "I suspect I'll be seeing him again."

* * *

Remus walked in standing prouder than Lily could ever remember seeing him. When he handed her a potion and a parchment, Lily's own smile grew to match his.

"Wolfsbane, and the recipe," he said. "Rok promised no Slav werewolves would help Voldemort."

"That's wonderful news!" _And how they needed those_. She hugged him and he chuckled merrily into her hair. "Great job, Remus."

"Mum said words is spreading. There are more people ready to reveal themselves, if they can be assured they'll get out. I'm going to have to convince Moody but-"

"Why would he need convincing?"

"The leak. He doesn't want to do anything that requires us to trust strangers. I'm going to give him another week to get over the loss of Potter Manor. He's been saying we need to cast Fidelius charms on all our safe-houses."

"Have you told him _James_ is over it?"

Remus sighed, eyes still crinkling. "_You_ tell him. Hopefully he doesn't growl at pregnant witches. This house was one of the places he mentioned wanting to ward up, by the way. Especially since the Fawleys, the Shafiqs, the Monmouthshire Abbots and the Oxford Bulstrodes publicly denounced You-Know-Who."

Funny how old-blood families responded more viscerally to a destroyed big house than to a hundred dead muggles and muggleborn. But this was not the time to be cynical, any advantage was a blessing.

Lily wanted to believe that if Voldemort was starting to specifically target James and her, it was because they'd delivered a true blow. That they weren't just puppies trying to take down an enraged hyena.

She cradled her barely swollen stomach, both excited and terrified for the future. _We're going to win this, Harry. We are._

* * *

**And that's it for defiance 2 out of 3, folks. Give me a shout out if you want me to wrap this story up. **

I admit the subplot with Mrs. Crouch happened because I realized I had written myself into a corner by outing Crouch Jr. as a Death Eater to the Order (why would anybody have been surprised by Karkaroff's reveal in canon if they'd all already known?), so I tried to figure out how to fix it and decided a woman ready to take her son's place in Azkaban would have no qualms doing everything to make sure he didn't go there in the first place.


End file.
